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- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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answer, he swore a great oath that the landlord had mulled a stoup
of wine for him, which he never doubted now was drugged. I bade
him go below and fetch the wine, telling the landlord that I, too
had a fancy for it.
“But what of Antoine?” he asked. “They will drug him.”
“Let them. We can manage this affair, you and I, without his help.
If they did not drug him, they might haply stab him. So that in
being drugged lies his safety.”
As I bade him so he did, and presently he returned with a great
steaming measure. This I emptied into a ewer, then returned it to
him that he might take it back to the host with my thanks and our
appreciation. Thus should we give them confidence that the way
was clear and smooth for them.
Thereafter there befell precisely that which already you will be
expecting, and nothing that you cannot guess. It was perhaps at
the end of an hour’s silent waiting that one of them came. We had
left the door unbarred so that his entrance was unhampered. But
scarce was he within when out of the dark, on either side of him,
rose Gilles and I. Before he had realized it, he was lifted off
his feet and deposited upon the bed without a cry; the only sound
being the tinkle of the knife that dropped from his suddenly
unnerved hand.
On the bed, with Gilles’s great knee in his stomach, and Gilles’s
hands at his throat, he was assured in unequivocal terms that at
his slightest outcry we would make an end of him. I kindled a
light. We trussed him hand and foot with the bedclothes, and then,
whilst he lay impotent and silent in his terror, I proceeded to
discuss the situation with him.
I pointed out that we knew that what he had done he had done at
Saint-Eustache’s instigation, therefore the true guilt was
Saint-Eustache’s and upon him alone the punishment should fall.
But ere this could come to pass, he himself must add his testimony
to ours - mine and Rodenard’s. If he would come to Toulouse and
do that make a full confession of how he had been set to do this
murdering - the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache, who was the real
culprit, should be the only one to suffer the penalty of the law.
If he would not do that, why, then, he must stand the consequences
himself - and the consequences would be the hangman. But in either
case he was coming to Toulouse in the morning.
It goes without saying that he was reasonable. I never for a moment
held his judgment in doubt; there is no loyalty about a cutthroat,
and it is not the way of his calling to take unnecessary risk.
We had just settled the matter in a mutually agreeable manner when
the door opened again, and his confederate - rendered uneasy, no
doubt, by his long absence - came to see what could be occasioning
this unconscionable delay in the slitting of the throats of a pair
of sleeping men.
Beholding us there in friendly conclave, and no doubt considering
that under the circumstances his intrusion was nothing short of an
impertinence, that polite gentleman uttered a cry - which I should
like to think was an apology for having disturbed us and turned to
go with most indecorous precipitancy.
But Gilles took him by the nape of his dirty neck and haled him back
into the room. In less time than it takes me to tell of it, he lay
beside his colleague, and was being asked whether he did not think
that he might also come to take the same view of the situation.
Overjoyed that we intended no worse by him, he swore by every saint
in the calendar that he would do our will, that he had reluctantly
undertaken the Chevalier’s business, that he was no cutthroat, but
a poor man with a wife and children to provide for.
And that, in short, was how it came to pass that the Chevalier de
Saint-Eustache himself, by disposing for my destruction, disposed
only for his own. With these two witnesses, and Rodenard to swear
how Saint-Eustache had bribed them to cut my throat, with myself
and Gilles to swear how the attempt had been made and frustrated,
I could now go to His Majesty with a very full confidence, not only
of having the Chevalier’s accusations, against whomsoever they
might be, discredited, but also of sending the Chevalier himself
to the gallows he had so richly earned.
LOUIS THE JUST
“For me,” said the King, “these depositions were not necessary.
Your word, my dear Marcel, would have sufficed. For the courts,
however, perhaps it is well that you have had them taken;
moreover, they form a valuable corroboration of the treason which
you lay to the charge of Monsieur de Saint-Eustache.”
We were standing - at least, La Fosse and I were standing, Louis
XIII sat - in a room, of the Palace of Toulouse, where I had had
the honour of being brought before His Majesty. La Fosse was
there, because it would seem that the King had grown fond of him,
and could not be without him since his coming to Toulouse.
His Majesty was, as usual, so dull and weary - not even roused by
the approaching trial of Montmorency, which was the main business
that had brought him South that even the company of this vapid,
shallow, but irrepressibly good-humoured La Fosse, with his
everlasting mythology, proved a thing desirable.
“I will see,” said Louis, “that your friend the Chevalier is placed
under arrest at once, and as much for his attempt upon your life
as for the unstable quality of his political opinions, the law shall
deal with him - conclusively.” He sighed. “It always pains me to
proceed to extremes against a man of his stamp. To deprive a fool
of his head seems a work of supererogation.”
I inclined my head, and smiled at his pleasantry. Louis the just
rarely permitted himself to jest, and when he did his humour was
as like unto humour as water is like unto wine. Still, when a
monarch jests, if you are wise, if you have a favour to sue, or a
position at Court to seek or to maintain, you smile, for all that
the ineptitude of his witless wit be rather provocative of sorrow.
“Nature needs meddling with at times,” hazarded La Fosse, from
behind His Majesty’s chair. “This Saint-Eustache is a sort of
Pandora’s box, which it is well to close ere—”
“Go to the devil,” said the King shortly. “We are not jesting.
We have to do justice.”
“Ah! Justice,” murmured La Fosse; “I have seen pictures of the
lady. She covers her eyes with a bandage, but is less discreet
where the other beauties of her figure are in question.”
His Majesty blushed. He was above all things a chaste-minded man,
modest as a nun. To the immodesty rampant about him he was in the
habit of closing his eyes and his ears, until the flagrancy or the
noise of it grew to proportions to which he might remain neither
blind nor deaf.
“Monsieur de la Fosse,” said he in an austere voice, “you weary me,
and when people weary me I send them away - which is one of the
reasons why I am usually so much alone. I beg that you will glance
at that hunting-book, so that when I have done with Monsieur de
Bardelys you may give me your impressions of it.”
La Fosse fell back, obedient but unabashed, and, moving to a table
by the window, he opened the book Louis had pointed out.
“Now, Marcel, while that buffoon prepares to inform me that the
book has been inspired by Diana herself, tell me what else you have
to tell.”
“Naught else, Sire.”
“How naught? What of this Vicomte de Lavedan.”
“Surely Your Majesty is satisfied that there is no charge - no
heedful charge against him?”
“Aye, but there is a charge - a very heedful one. And so far you
have afforded me no proofs of his innocence to warrant my sanctioning
his enlargement.”
“I had thought, Sire, that it would be unnecessary to advance proofs
of his innocence until there were proofs of his guilt to be refuted.
It is unusual, Your Majesty, to apprehend a gentleman so that he may
show cause why he did not deserve such apprehension. The more usual
course is to arrest him because there are proofs of his guilt to be
preferred against him.”
Louis combed his beard pensively, and his melancholy eyes grew
thoughtful.
“A nice point, Marcel,” said he, and he yawned. “A nice point. You
should have been a lawyer.” Then, with an abrupt change of manner,
“Do you give me your word of honour that he is innocent?” he asked
sharply.
“If Your Majesty’s judges offer proof of his guilt, I give you my
word that I will tear that proof to pieces.”
“That is not an answer. Do you swear his innocence?”
“Do I know what he carries in his conscience?” quoth I still fencing
with the question. “How can I give my word in such a matter? Ah,
Sire, it is not for nothing that they call you Louis the Just,” I
pursued, adopting cajolery and presenting him with his own favourite
phrase. “You will never allow a man against whom there is no shred
of evidence to be confined in prison.”
“Is there not?” he questioned. Yet his tone grew gentler. History,
he had promised himself, should know him as Louis the Just, and he
would do naught that might jeopardize his claim to that proud title.
“There is the evidence of this Saint-Eustache!”
“Would Your Majesty hang a dog upon the word of that double traitor?”
“Hum! You are a great advocate, Marcel. You avoid answering
questions; you turn questions aside by counter-questions.” He
seemed to be talking more to himself than tome. “You are a much
better advocate than the Vicomte’s wife, for instance. She
answers questions and has a temper - Ciel! what a temper!”
“You have seen the Vicomtesse?” I exclaimed, and I grew cold with
apprehension, knowing as I did the licence of that woman’s tongue.
“Seen her?” he echoed whimsically. “I have seen her, heard her,
well-nigh felt her. The air of this room is still disturbed as a
consequence of her presence. She was here an hour ago.”
“And it seemed,” lisped La Fosse, turning from his hunting-book,
“as if the three daughters of Acheron had quitted the domain of
Pluto to take embodiment in a single woman.”
“I would not have seen her,” the King resumed as though La Fosse
had not spoken, “but she would not be denied. I heard her voice
blaspheming in the antechamber when I refused to receive her; there
was a commotion at my door; it was dashed open, and the Swiss who
held it was hurled into my room here as though he had been a
mannikin. Dieu! Since I have reigned in France I have not been
the centre of so much commotion. She is a strong woman, Marcel
the saints defend you hereafter, when she shall come to be your
mother-in-law. In all France, I’ll swear, her tongue is the only
stouter thing than her arm. But she’s a fool.”
“What did she say, Sire?” I asked in my anxiety.
“Say? She swore -
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