The Helmet of Navarre Part 67

"No; had they meant murder, they'd have settled him here in the alley.

Since they lugged him off unhurt, they don't mean it. I know not what the devil they are up to, but it isn't that."

"It was Lucas's game in the first place," I repeated. "He's too prudent to come out in the open and fight M. etienne. He never strikes with his own hand; his way is to make some one else strike for him. So he gets M.

etienne into the Bastille. That's the first step. I suppose he thinks Mayenne will attend to the second."

"Mayenne dares not take the boy's life," Vigo answered. "He could have killed him, an he chose, in the streets, and n.o.body the wiser. But now that monsieur's taken publicly to the Bastille, Mayenne dares not kill him there, by foul play or by law--the Duke of St. Quentin's son. No; all Mayenne can do is to confine him at his good pleasure. Whence presently we will pluck him out at King Henry's good pleasure."

"And meantime is he to rot behind bars?"

"Unless Monsieur can get him out. But then," Vigo went on, "a month or two in a cell won't be a bad thing for him, neither. His head will have a chance to cool. After a dose of Mayenne's purge he may recover of his fever for Mayenne's ward."

"Monsieur! You will send to Monsieur?"

"Of course. You will go. And Gilles with you to keep you out of mischief."

"When? Now?"

"No," said Vigo. "You will go clothe yourself in breeches first, else are you not likely to arrive anywhere but at the mad-house. And then eat your supper. It's a long road to St. Denis."

I ran at once, through a fusillade of jeers from soldiers, grooms, and house-men, across the court, through the hall, and up the stairs to Marcel's chamber. Never was I gladder of anything in my life than to doff those swaddling petticoats. Two minutes, and I was a man again. I found it in my heart to pity the poor things who must wear the trappings their lives long.

But for all my joy in my freedom, I choked over my supper and pushed it away half tasted, in misery over M. etienne. Vigo might say comfortably that Mayenne dared not kill him, but I thought there were few things that gentleman dared not do. Then there was Lucas to be reckoned with.

He had caught his fly in the web; he was not likely to let him go long undevoured. At best, if M. etienne's life were safe, yet was he helpless, while to-morrow our mademoiselle was to marry. Vigo seemed to think that a blessing, but I was nigh to weeping into my soup. The one ray of light was that she was not to marry Lucas. That was something.

Still, when M. etienne came out of prison, if ever he did,--I could scarce bring myself to believe it,--he would find his dear vanished over the rocky Pyrenees.

Vigo would not even let me start when I was ready. Since we were too late to find the gates open, we must wait till ten of the clock, at which hour the St. Denis gate would be in the hands of a certain Brissac, who would pa.s.s us with a wink at the word St. Quentin.

I was so wroth with Vigo that I would not stay with him, but went up-stairs into M. etienne's silent chamber, and flung myself down on the window-bench his head might never touch again, and wondered how he was faring in prison. I wished I were there with him. I cared not much what the place was, so long as we were together. I had gone down the mouth of h.e.l.l smiling, so be it I went at his heels. Mayhap if I had struggled harder with my captors, shown my s.e.x earlier, they had taken me too.

Heartily I wished they had; I trow I am the only wight ever did wish himself behind bars. And promptly I repented me, for if Vigo had proved but a broken reed, there was Monsieur. Monsieur was not likely to sit smug and declare prison the best place for his son.

The slow twilight faded altogether, and the dark came. The city was very still. Once in a while a shout or a sound of bell was borne over the roofs, or infrequent voices and footsteps sounded in the street beyond our gate. The men in the court under my window were quiet too, talking among themselves without much raillery or laughter; I knew they discussed the unhappy plight of the heir of St. Quentin. The chimes had rung some time ago the half-hour after nine, and I was fidgeting to be off, but huffed as I was with him, I could not lower myself to go ask Vigo's leave to start. He might come after me when he wanted me.

"Felix! Felix!" Marcel shouted down the corridor. I sprang up; then, remembering my dignity, moved no further, but bade him come in to me.

"Where are you mooning in the dark?" he demanded, stumbling over the threshold. "Oh, there you are. Dame! you'd come down-stairs mighty quick if you knew what was there for you?"

"What?" I cried, divided between the wild hope that it was Monsieur and the wilder one that it was M. etienne.

"Don't you wish I'd tell you? Well, you're a good boy, and I will. It's the prettiest la.s.s I've seen in a month of Sundays--you in your petticoats don't come near her."

"For me?" I stuttered.

"Aye; she asked for M. le Duc, and when he wasn't here, for you. I suppose it's some friend of M. etienne's."

I supposed so, indeed; I supposed it was the owner of my borrowed plumage come to claim her own, angry perhaps because I had not returned it to her. I wondered whether she would scratch my eyes out because I had lost the cap--whether I could find it if I went to look with a light. None too eagerly I descended to her.

She was standing against the wall in the archway. Two or three of the guardsmen were about her, one with a flambeau, by which they were all surveying her. She wore the coif and blouse, the black bodice and short striped skirt, of the country peasant girl, and, like a country girl, she showed a face flushed and downcast under the soldiers' bold scrutiny. She looked up at me as at a rescuing angel. It was Mlle. de Montluc!

I dashed past the torch-bearer, nearly upsetting him in my haste, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand.

"Mademoiselle! Come into the house!"

She clutched me with fingers as cold as marble, which trembled on mine.

"Where is M. de St. Quentin?"

"At St. Denis."

"You must take me there to-night."

"I was going," I stammered, bewildered; "but you, mademoiselle--"

"You knew of M. de Mar's arrest?"

"Aye."

"What coil is this, Felix?" demanded Vigo, coming up. He took the torch from his man, and held it in mademoiselle's face, whereupon an amazing change came over his own. He lowered the light, s.h.i.+elding it with his hand, as if it were an impertinent eye.

"You are Vigo," she said at once.

"Yes; and I know not what n.o.ble lady mademoiselle can be, save--will it please her to come into the house?"

He led the way with his torch, not suffering himself to look at her again. He had his foot on the staircase, when she called to him, as if she had been accustomed to addressing him all her life:

"Vigo, this will do. I will speak to you here."

"As mademoiselle wishes. I thought the salon fitter. My cabinet here will be quieter than the hall, mademoiselle."

He opened the door, and she entered. He pushed me in next, giving me the torch and saying:

"Ask mademoiselle, Felix, whether she wants me." He amazed me--he who always ordered.

"I want you, Vigo," mademoiselle answered him herself. "I want you to send two men with me to St. Denis."

"To-morrow?"

"No; to-night."

"But mademoiselle cannot go to St. Denis."

"I can, and I must."

"They will not let a horse-party through the gate at night," Vigo began.

"We will go on foot."

"Mademoiselle," Vigo answered, as if she had proposed flying to the moon, "you cannot walk to St. Denis."