Читать книгу The Justice of the King - Hamilton Drummond - Страница 6

Passing his clenched hand through the crook of Commines' arm, and leaning heavily on the stick in the other hand, Louis turned slowly up the gallery, and for a time both were silent. They made a strange contrast. The King was shrunken, bowed, and bent, a veritable walking skeleton to whom the grave already imperiously beckoned nor would take long denial. With his bony head, his listless face, his lean, long neck thrust out from the fur of his upturned collar, he resembled a giant bird of prey. The skinny hand thrust through the crook of Commines' arm, and still grasping the crumpled despatch, was the claw of a vulture. Above him, head and shoulders, towered Commines, square-set, burly, muscular, and as full of life and vigour as his master was sapless. Just midway to the threescore years and ten, his bodily powers were at their highest, and in the ten years he had served Louis his mind had ripened so that few men were more astute, more shrewd to see and seize upon advantages, whether for himself or his master. In the King's service few scruples troubled him, the questionable act was Louis', his part was to obey.

"Then, sire, the post was not from Paris?"

"From Amboise," answered Louis, with sudden incisive vigour, his voice rasping harshly. "From Amboise, where the ungrateful son of a miserable father plots and plots and plots: and you, whose business it is to know everything, know nothing."

"The Dauphin? and plotting against you? But, sire, it is impossible.

The Dauphin is barely thirteen years of age."

"The pity of it, Argenton, oh! the pity of it." As he spoke one who did not know him as Commines knew him would have sworn that tears were very near the dull, dry eyes. "No more than thirteen—no, not thirteen, and yet—ah! the pity of it."

"Oh, sire, some one has deceived you. The Dauphin is too young to plot, even if affection and common nature——"

"Too young?" broke in Louis, halting in his slow walk to strike the pavement angrily with his stick. "At what age does a serpent grow fangs? Too young? Ill weeds grow apace, and then there may be those about him who egg him on, who sow wrong ideas in his mind that they may reap some gain to themselves. All are not as faithful as thou art, Philip. I have not always been merciful—not always. At times justice has rejoiced against mercy for the general good; yes, for the general good. There was Molembrais; men blame me for Molembrais; but if the King's arm be not strong enough to strike, who shall hold the kingdom in its place? And because the King's hand pulls down and raises up as God wills"—he paused, and bowed with a little gesture of his hand to his cap—"there are those who do not love me. But if they egg on, those others who should be loyal to their King and are not, if they suggest, it is my son—my son, Argenton—who is the very heart and centre; my son, who out of his little twelve years raises his hand against my threescore."

"If he has done that," began Commines, picking his words slowly (he had not as yet fathomed Louis' purpose, and feared lest he should commit himself in too great haste to the wrong policy), "if the Dauphin has truly so forgotten natural love and duty——"

"If!" With a snarl which showed his gapped and yellow teeth Louis again straightened himself, and as he raised his head beyond the reflected glow of the scarlet cloak his face was grey with passion. "If? If? Head of God, man! do you dare talk to me in 'ifs'? Philip de Commines, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were the humble fetcher and carrier to that Bully of Burgundy whom I crushed, when you were the very hound and cur of his pleasure, fawning on him for the scraps of life, I took you up, I!—I! Now you are Lord of Argenton, now you are Seneschal of Poitou, now you are Prince of Talmont, and I have made you all these, I!—I! and you answer me with an 'if'! But the hand which raised you up can drag down, you who answer me with an 'if.' The hand which drew from the mud can fling into the ditch, you who answer me with an 'if.' And, by God! I'll do it! An 'if'? We say 'ifs' to fools. Was I a fool to turn the lickshoe of Charles the Bully into the Prince of Talmont? Was I a fool to grope in the mud for a Seneschal of Poitou? Am I a fool now—I, who have held the strings of all Europe in my hand for thirty years, and loosed or ravelled them as suited the greatness of France? God be my witness, all has been for the greatness of France! France comes first, always first. And now, when I say my son plots against me, that twelve-year boy who is of an age to be king, am I a fool and liar? Does this lie? Answer me, Argenton, does this lie?" And wrenching his hand free from Commines he shook the paper passionately above his head.

So sudden and so fierce was the attack, so full of bitter venom and raw rage, so brutally naked and perilous in its threat, that Commines fairly quailed. The florid ruddiness of his fleshy face faded to a pallor more cadaverous than the unhealthy grey of Louis' sunken cheeks as he remembered Molembrais. At the door stood the guards with crossed pikes, beyond these were Leslie and Saint-Pierre, watchful and alert. He was loved little better than his master, and he knew it. Let the King speak and there would be no hesitancy, little pity. In his rapid rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And the King's threat was no idle boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself. A hand? A beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be enough, and Commines trembled.

"Sire, sire," he cried, his arms raised in protest and supplication, "how have I offended you? In what have I been ungrateful? I meant no more but that it seemed impossible a son could turn against so good, so great a father. That—that—staggered me for the moment. It beggared reason; it—it—but let me read the despatch for myself, sire. Not for belief, but for comprehension, and that we may meet the blow together, that we may turn it aside—may turn it back on—on—the hand that strikes."

"Aye!" said Louis drily, "that is more like the Commines of old, the Commines who served his master without an 'if.' And that is a good phrase of yours—turn back the blow on the hand that strikes! When that is done, and the time comes for reward, I will not forget that it was your phrase. And it was for that I sent for you: I knew my friend Commines would find a way to—to—guard his master effectually."

Before Louis ended all the harshness had gone from his voice, and it became marvellously gentle, marvellously kindly, almost caressing. A master student of the subtle trifles which unconsciously influence great events, he played upon men's minds as a skilled musician on his instrument, and they obeyed the touch. Nor was Philip de Commines, opportunist, political adventurer, philosopher, soldier of fortune, diplomatist, exempt from the influence of that skilful mastery. As he had gloomed so now he gladdened: he squared his shoulders to his fullest height, filling his lungs with a deeper inspiration, and the colour ran back to his cheeks in flood. Nor was it all in pride; there was relief, and the lifting up of a burden which for one terrible moment had threatened to crush him to the earth itself.

But the life which gave its strength to the hand which lifted and dragged down was frail almost to extinction, and remembering that one day the Dauphin must step into Louis' place Commines ventured to temporize.

"Yes, sire, but to turn back the blow I must know who aims the blow, whence it comes, where it will strike, and when. To fight in the dark is to waste strength. Have I your leave to read the despatch from Amboise?"

"Eh?" With the gesture of a natural impulse Louis held out the paper, then drew it back. "We will wait a little. I am tired, very tired. This shock has unnerved me. Let me sit down, Philip, and rest."

Slowly, with an arm on Commines' shoulder, he turned and, sinking into the chair, leaned forward upon the table in an attitude of utter weariness, his hand still resting upon the despatch. So there was a pause for a moment, Commines standing to one side, silent and ill at ease. Then with a sigh, which was almost a groan, Louis roused himself. Reaching out his hand he raised to his lips a little silver image of Saint Denis, one of a group which filled a corner of the table, some standing upright, some pitched upon their faces without regard to reverence or respect. Kissing it fervently he again sighed, his eyes raised to the groined roof, and shook his head sadly. If Saint Denis did not whisper inspiration he at least spun out the time for thought. Commines' request was reasonable, and he was at a loss how plausibly to evade it.

"Have I your leave, sire?"

"Eh?" Down came the King's hand upon the paper, Saint Denis grasped, baton-fashion, by the feet. "No, Philip, no, I think not. It is in confidence, and above all things a king must respect confidence, or how could he be trusted?" A sentence which sounded strange from the lips of a man who never kept a treaty he could break to his own advantage, or, to give him his due, to the advantage of France.

"That I can understand," answered Commines, as gravely as if his master's tortuous road to the consolidation of the kingdom had not been strewn with ruptured contracts, unscrupulous chicanery, and solemn pledges brazenly evaded. "But how am I to act? How can I, in the dark, parry a blow from the dark?"

"Suspect every one," answered Louis, brushing aside Saint Denis as he turned sharply in his chair. The saint had served his turn. He had been invoked in a perplexity, and now that the way was clear, no doubt in answer to the invocation, he was flung aside without ceremony. "Suspect every one. To suspect all you meet is the first great rule of prudence, wisdom, success; and to suspect your own self is the second. Go to Amboise. Remember there is no if, and sift, search, find, but especially find."

"Find what, sire?"

For answer Louis clutched the paper yet tighter and shook it in the air, and if Commines could but have guessed it, there was a double meaning in the action and the words which accompanied it.

"Find this!"

"And having found?" Commines paused, conscious that the ground was treacherous under his feet. "Sire, remember he is the Dauphin and the son of France."