Читать книгу The Justice of the King - Hamilton Drummond - Страница 8

With a quick gesture, the arm thrust out, the hand open, the fingers spread, Louis shrank back, his other arm across his face. It was a movement eloquent of pathos, despair, and suffering; then, with another sigh, he straightened himself, his corpse-like face pinched with care.

"The son of France!" he repeated. "Yes! the son of France! but,

Philip, my friend, my one friend, must the father perish for the son?"

"Oh, sire, sire," cried Commines, deeply moved, both by the words and the appeal in the voice. "Never that. And it is true—you are France, France itself as no King ever has been; France in its strength, France in its hope, and God knows what evil will befall——" He checked himself sharply as a spasm twisted the King's sunken mouth. Carried away by his sympathy he had forgotten that it was an almost unforgivable offence to hint that Louis was not immortal. For him the word death was wiped from the language. If the dread shadow took form to strike, those near might say "Speak little," or "Confess," but nothing more.

But for once the offence passed without rebuke; it was even seized upon to point a moral, and nerving himself to face the thought the King completed the sentence.

"God knows what evil will befall France in a boy's hands! And within a year he will be of age; of age and yet a child. A puppet king of France!" Louis paused, drawing in his breath with a shudder like a man chilled to the marrow. "A puppet, a puppet, and in the hands of a puppet what must the end be? Ah! France! France! France! It is disaster, unless it can be turned aside. Philip, you must go to Amboise. Take with you some one you can trust, if in all Valmy there is such an one!"

"There is, sire; one I can trust as my King can trust me."

"Yes, yes, but not overmuch; do not trust him overmuch. Remember what

I said—suspect, suspect."

"I am not afraid, sire, Stephen La Mothe owes everything to me."

"Gratitude? Is that any reason for faithfulness? Piff!" And the King blew out his thin lips in contempt. "To bind men to you, Commines, to bind them so that you may sleep easy o' nights, you must hold them either by the fear of to-day or the hope of to-morrow. Gratitude! Thanks for eaten bread! How many are there who owe me everything, and yet have turned against me. But let that pass; may God and the Saints forgive them as I do." Louis paused, and a sardonic smile flickered for an instant across his face. If God and the Saints had no more forgiveness for his enemies than he had, then their prospects in the life to come were as miserable as Louis would have made the remnant of their days in this present world if they but fell into his power. "And this La Mothe," he went on, "there is no need to tell him all we know. To tell all you know is to lose your advantage. And why should he be faithful? Why does he owe you everything?"

"I promised his sister—it was years ago——"

"A woman? Um, I do not like women. The ways of men I can follow, but the ways of women are beyond me. Seven devils were cast out of one, but not from the rest, and so there is no understanding them. No, I do not like women."

"Sire, she is long dead."

"Yes? That makes it safer, but I do not see that it is any reason for trusting the brother. Take him with you to Amboise if you think he is safe, but remember"—and the King's lean hand was shaken suddenly upward almost in Commines' face, a threat as well as a warning—"I hold you responsible, you, you, you only. Let him be with you, but not of you; let him enter Amboise apart from you, and let him work out of sight like a mole, obeying orders without knowing why he obeys. Then if he fails, or blunders, or is fool enough to be caught spying, you can disown him, can wash your hands of him, and let him hang! Um! You don't like it? I see in your face that you don't like it. Will you never learn that a face has a tongue of its own to be used to conceal our thoughts? But yours—I know your thought. The woman! Bah! the woman is dead."

"Sire, a promise to the dead is like a vow to the Saints; none can give it back."

"Um! a vow to the Saints? But we must have the Saints on our side. Let me see—let me see. Yes! Take him with you, openly or secretly as you will, and if he bungles I shall deal with him. That frees you from your promise. The justice of the King! Eh, Philip! will the justice of the King please you better?"

The justice of the King! Louis sat back in his chair as he spoke, his blotched gums showing in a grin between his thin lips, his dull eyes half veiled by the drooping of the leaden-hued lids. More than ever he was a mask of death, but of a death that possessed a grim humour, malevolent in its satirical cynicism. The justice of the King. Who should know that justice so well as Commines, its minister for almost a dozen years, or who so testify to its stern implacability? None escaped the rigid iron of its wrath. Their almost royal blood saved neither the Duke of Nemours nor the Count of Armagnac. Saint-Pol, Constable of France, perished on the scaffold. Besides these a score of the greater nobles of France had fallen, nor could the scarlet of the Cardinalate shield Balue from its vengeance. If these, the great ones of the chess-board, were beyond the pale of mercy, what hope would there be for a simple pawn like Stephen La Mothe, if once he fell beneath that inflexible ban? And yet to the courtier the King's question could have but one reply.

"The justice of the King," repeated Commines; and added, without thought of irreverence, "Let him fall into the hands of God and not of man."

"Good!" The thin lips twitched, and deep in the dead eyes a sombre fire glowed. It warmed his cold humour to read so plainly the thought hidden behind the smooth words. But to a mind as fertile as the King's that very thought was a suggestion. It would be well that this La Mothe should clearly understand all he had to fear; and not to fear only but also to hope. The justice of the King could raise up as well as cast down, could reward without measure as well as crush without mercy.

"Go to Amboise. Be myself in Amboise. If—I use your own word, Philip—if justice must strike—— Ah! poor wretched King and yet more wretched father!—be thou the King's justice, be thou the King's hand in Amboise, and let this Monsieur La Mothe be your ears, your eyes. And—um—yes, let me see this La Mothe before you leave; I am, as you know, something of a judge of men. To-morrow will do, and the next day you can go to Amboise."

"And my commission, sire? My authority to act on your behalf?"

"Commission?" The plaintive, gentle calm of the King's voice broke up in storm. Leaning forward Louis tapped his finger-tips on the table noisily. "Sift, search, find, find, there is your commission. Authority? Um—um—when Absalom rebelled against David did Joab, the king's servant, say, 'Where is my authority?' Rebellion is your authority; the safety of your King is your authority; the plot against France is your authority. For such crimes there is none above justice, Monsieur d'Argenton, none—none. But justice is like truth, and sometimes dwells in shadow. Do you understand? Justice, but no scandal. We must be circumspect. There must be no shock to public thought in France. It is the curse and fate of kings to be misjudged. Justice might well come by way of accident. And—let me see! This La Mothe! He owes you everything and you say he can be trusted?"

"Yes, sire, but I have been thinking——"

"Then, Philip, tell him something of what I have told you. The danger——" The King again shook in the air the crumpled despatch which had never been exposed, never left his grasp for an instant. "The danger to me—to France—to you, above all to you who vouch for him. He owes you everything as you owe me, perhaps he will understand as you do?"

"But, sire," said Commines again, striving hard to keep his voice unemotional, "while you spoke I have been thinking. I fear Stephen La Mothe is too young, too inexperienced, for so grave a mission."

"And are there two in Valmy you can trust with your life? Too young? No! To be young is to be generous, to be young is to dream dreams. The generosity of his youth will repay you all he thinks he owes, and will not count the cost: the dreams will see the glory of serving France. Age brings caution, Philip; age brings too much of the weighing of consequence; and at Amboise a little incaution will be good, incaution of himself, you understand. He owes you everything; let him get it into his head that you are the gainer by his incaution—as you will be, Philip, as you will be, and he too. There! That is settled. Send him to me to-morrow. Move the brazier nearer to me, then go. Nearer yet; within reach of my hand. There! that will do."

But filled by a fear he dared not show Commines still lingered. Across the gulf of the past years came the voice of the dear, dead woman, the voice of the lost love of his youth, lost while youth was generous, while youth dreamed dreams and loved passionate. It was the sweetest voice he had ever known; sweet in itself because of itself, caressing, gentle, sweeter still because passionate love had throbbed through it. "Watch over him, Philip, for my sake," it said, and she had died comforted by his promises, died trusting him. And now—— But while he hesitated, willing but afraid to dare, Louis bestirred himself. Resting one arm upon the table he pushed himself half upright with the other hand, and so, half poised, pointed forward at the door. A blotch of crimson showed upon the cheek-bones and the dull eyes glowed.

"God's name, man! did you not hear me? Do you serve me or the Dauphin?

Which? Go! go! go!"

This time Commines obeyed, and obeyed in silence. The King's question was not one which called for an answer; or rather he understood that Amboise must give the answer, give it emphatically and without a quibble. Once outside the door he paused. Between Saint-Pierre, Leslie, and himself no love was lost, but the bond of a united watchfulness against a common danger bound them to mutual service.

"Where was it from?" asked Saint-Pierre. But Commines shook his head, running his fingers inside the collar of his doublet significantly. Complacency, even when it was the complacency of self-defence, had its limits.

"I dare not," he whispered back. "He is in the mood of the devil.

What is he doing now?"

As if playing the part of sentry Saint-Pierre turned and walked twice or thrice up and down before the open door, glancing cautiously within.

"Tearing the despatch, and burning it piecemeal in the brazier."

"I feared as much. If you love yourselves, gentlemen, see that you do not cross him to-day. And when I am gone from Valmy walk warily."

"Where are you going, Monsieur de Commines?"

"To Amboise, and I would have given a thousand crowns for one look at that despatch."

But it is a question whether the look would have taught him much, though he had studied the paper for an hour. It was blank; beyond the superscription and the "Louis" sprawled across the corner there was not one single word. And yet, to one trained by ten years service in his master's ways of crooked cunning the very blank would have been eloquent of warning.