The Helmet of Navarre Part 7

"That task needs a greater power than yours, my Gervais."

He regarded Gervais with a rueful smile, his thoughts of a sudden as far away from me as if I had never set foot in the Rue Coupejarrets. He shook his head, sighing, and said, with a hand on Gervais's shoulder: "It's beyond you, cousin."

Gervais brought him back to the point.

"Well, I've done what I could for you. But you don't help me when you let loose a spy to warn Lucas."

"He shall not go. You know well, cousin, you will be no gladder than I when that knave is dead. But I will not have Felix Broux suffer because he dared speak for the Duke of St. Quentin."

"As you choose, then. I will not touch a hair of his head if you keep him from Lucas."

Once more he turned away across the room. My bewilderment was so great that the words came out of themselves:

"Messieurs, is it Lucas you mean to kill?"

Yeux-gris looked at me, not instantly replying. I cried again to him:

"Monsieur, is it Lucas or the duke?"

Then Yeux-gris, despite a gesture from Gervais, who would have told me nothing I might ask, exclaimed:

"Why, Lucas!"

He said it in such honest surprise and with such a steady glance that the heavy fear that had hung on me dropped from me like a dead-weight, and suddenly I turned quite dizzy and fell into the nearest chair.

A dash of water in the face made me look up, to see Yeux-gris standing wet-handed by me.

"Mon dieu!" he cried, "you were as white as the wall. Do you love so much this Lucas who struck you?"

"No," I said, rising; "I thought you meant to kill the duke."

"Did you take us for Leaguers?"

I nodded.

He spoke as if actually he felt it important to set himself right in my eyes.

"Well, we are none. We are no politicians, but private gentlemen with a grudge to pay. I care not what the parties do. Whether we have the Princess Isabelle or Henry the Huguenot, 'tis all one to me; I am not putting either on the throne. So if you have got it into your head that we are plotting for the League, why, get it out again."

"But you are enemies to the Duke of St. Quentin?"

He answered me slowly:

"We do not love him. But we do not plot his death. He goes his way unharmed by us. We are gentlemen, not bravos."

"And Lucas?"

"Lucas is my cousin's enemy, and, being a great man's man, skulks behind the bars of the Hotel st. Quentin and will not face my cousin's sword.

So to reach him takes a little plotting. Do you believe me?"

I looked into his gray eyes, that had flashed so hotly in my defence, and I could not but believe him.

"Yes, monsieur," I said.

He regarded me curiously.

"The duke's life seems much to you."

"Why, monsieur, I am a Broux."

"And could not be disloyal to save your life?"

"My life! Monsieur, the Broux would not seek to save their souls if M.

le Duc preferred them d.a.m.ned."

I expected he would rebuke me for the outburst, but he did not; he merely said:

"And Lucas?"

"Oh, Lucas!" I said. "I know nothing of him. He is new with the duke since my time. I do not owe him anything, save a grudge for that blow this morning. Mon dieu, monsieur, I am thankful to you for befriending me. Dying for Monsieur is all in a day's work; we expect to do that.

But, my faith, if I had died just now, it would have been for Lucas."

At this moment a long groan came from the end of the room. We turned; the lackey was waking from his swoon, under the ministration of Gervais.

He opened his eyes; their glance was dull till they fell upon his master. And then at once they looked venomous.

Gervais kicked him into fuller consciousness.

"Get up, hound. It is time to meet Martin."

The wretch scrambled shakily to his feet, and stood clutching the door-jamb and eying Gervais, terror writ large on his chalky countenance. Yet there was more than terror in his face; there was the look you see in the eyes of a trapped animal that watches its chance to bite. Yeux-gris cried out:

"You dare not send that man, Gervais."

"Why not?"

"Because the moment he is clear of the house he will betray you. Look at his face."

"He shall swear on the cross!"

"Aye. But you cannot trust the oath of such as he."

"What would you? We must send."

"As you will. But you are mad if you send him."

Gervais pondered a moment, his slower wits taking in the situation. Then he seized the man by the collar, fairly flung him across the room into the closet, and bolted the door upon him.

"I will settle with him later. But you are right. We cannot send him."