Читать книгу Turbulent Tales - Raphael Sabatini - Страница 5

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THE Sire Tristan de Beloeil standing upon the threshold of Eternity considered perhaps for the first time since his birth, twenty-five years earlier, how much there was in life which could not be heft without regret.

Well-born and well-dowered in fortune as in body, the world's best gifts had lain within his easy reach and there had been on his part no reluctance in making them his own, or niggardliness in using them.

The priest who had been sent to shrive him, and who had just departed, might be correctly informed in the matter of the Hereafter, which he had described in such alluring terms. But it seemed to the Sire Tristan that the priest took a good deal for granted; and for his own part he was content enough with the world of men, and would prefer to continue in it, postponing until much later the enjoyment of the delights of Paradise to which the hangman was to despatch him in the morning.

He leaned on the stone sill of the solidly barred window of his prison in the Gravensteen of Ghent, and contemplated the sunset. He was not likely to contemplate another, since only the powers of Joshua could postpone the doom which its circling would bring him in the next twelve hours. He took his head in his hands, thrusting his fingers deep into his golden mane, and so far forgot the admirable stoicism which had hitherto supported him as to permit himself a sob. Never had life seemed so sweet and desirable as now that by the justice of the great Duke of Burgundy he was to be deprived of it. This justice, he held, had been too harshly administered by the Ducal Lieutenant. He was prepared to admit that a certain severity may be expedient in legislating for a subject people, especially when they are as stubborn and turbulent as those of Ghent who had given the Duke trouble almost from the very hour of his accession. But even a Ducal Lieutenant should not disregard the claims which the laws of honour make upon a gentleman of birth; and tolerance should be shown whenever these laws are in conflict with no less arbitrary ducal enactments. It was true that the Sire Tristan had grievously wounded a man, and equally true that deeds of blood were of all offences those which Ducal Lieutenants, operating so briskly with sack and cord throughout the Duke's wide dominions, were instructed to punish most rigorously. But, after all, this had been no act of brigandage or scoundrel violence. He had fought honourably with Conrad van der Schuylen, and it was monstrous that he should be required to pay for it by dying a felon's death.

Yet if the Ducal Lieutenant of Ghent—the wooden-faced Sire de Vauvenargues—had confined himself in his judgment to the naked fact and taken no account of its clothing circumstances, the fault was largely the Sire Tristan's own. He had stubbornly refused to inform the court of the grounds of the quarrel, arrogantly claiming that he was within his rights to engage in single combat whenever honour should demand it.

"How," the Ducal Lieutenant had asked him, not unreasonably, "are we to judge that honour demanded it in this instance unless you disclose the grounds upon which you quarrelled?"

The Sire Tristan, however, would not yield the point. "It is a gentleman's right to quarrel upon any grounds he pleases. The present grounds are such as I cannot publish without committing a disloyalty. It is in your knowledge that I did not fall upon Messire van der Schuylen unawares, like an assassin; therefore you cannot deal with me as with a common murderer."

But the court showed him that it could. If he would not defend himself in what the court accounted proper terms, the court must assume that he had no proper defence. Van der Schuylen's turn would come later when and if he recovered sufficiently to stand his trial. Perhaps he would be less obstinate. Perhaps he would have less cause so to be. Thus the Ducal Lieutenant, who thereupon proceeded calmly to pass sentence of death upon the Sire Tristan de Beloeil as an example to all men who might be disposed to practise turbulence within the ducal dominions.

The Sire Tristan was sprung from a family of much consequence, and this family exerted itself vigorously, urging its ancient blood as a last plea why execution should be stayed until appeal could be made to the Duke's Highness in person. But the Ducal Lieutenant met this plea with that monstrous falsehood of all time that in the eyes of the law all men are equal, and that, therefore, no appeal to the Duke could avail. Thereafter, an advocate had arisen in the grey justice chamber of the Gravensteen to offer on behalf of some person or persons unnamed to ransom the prisoner by the payment of any reasonable fine which the Ducal Lieutenant might see fit to impose as an alternative.

He was curtly informed that the justice of Burgundy was not for sale, and the Sire Tristan was conducted back to his prison, there to prepare himself for his end. He was not even to have the satisfaction of knowing what generous friend had sent that advocate before the court with his mysterious offer. For although the Sire Tristan possessed many friends, yet he could think of none whose love for him would have gone to quite such lengths. The failure of that attempt had closed the last door on hope, and nothing now remained but to prepare himself for tomorrow's grim journey with the best courage he could command.

They kept him waiting next day until noon, thereby subjecting him to a torment of hope. He perceived the reason when at last they brought him forth from the palace-fortress which once had been the castle of the Counts of Flanders, and conducted him through the mean alleys of the Oudeburg to the great square where the scaffold was erected in the shadow of that Belfry regarded by the burghers as the monument of their power and wealth. The Ducal Lieutenant had chosen the hour when the noon bell summoned the forty thousand weavers of Ghent from their looms to the midday meal. They were a turbulent, stubbornly independent class, these weavers, ever ready in defence of liberty to exchange the shuttle for the club or the pike. Their numbers and cohesion made them formidable, wherefore the Sire de Vauvenargues deemed it well to miss no opportunity of intimidating them by a display of the iron hand of Burgundy. The hour of deserted looms was deliberately chosen so that all Ghent might be free to witness this operation of Burgundian justice upon a well-born disturber of the peace.

Under a strong guard of archers, upon the breasts of whose white surcoats was displayed the Burgundian badge of the St Andrew's Cross, came the Sire Tristan de Beloeil marching briskly to his doom. He carried himself erect, his face composed, if pale, and he had dressed himself in his best as if for a bridal, accounting that his birth and blood demanded that he should make as brave a show as possible on this his last appearance.

His pourpoint was of red velvet, tapering gracefully to the waist, laced in gold across the wedge of snowy undergarment showing at the breast; his hose was parti-coloured, red and white, his long boots of fine red Spanish leather turned over at the tops.

Beholding him so young and so comely, so elegant and so intrepid, the crowd was moved to general compassion, whilst here and there the feeling became allied with indignation that he should suffer a felon's death for a deed which no equitable justice would have regarded as felonious.

The Sire Tristan was bareheaded, and the abundant hair which hung to the nape of his neck was so lustrously golden that an aureole of light seemed to glow about it as it reflected the sunlight of that fair April noon. This was observed by some and pointed out as a portent, a sign of heavenly grace, a prognostic of beatitude to be earned him by his approaching martyrdom. A woman was the first to voice it.

"There is a nimbus about his head!" she cried. "It is a sign!"

Another took up the cry and amplified it: "There is a throne awaiting him in Heaven, the dear young saint."

Why, this assurance growing amongst them, they should have desired to prevent the Sire Tristan, for whom there was certainly no throne on earth, from at once fulfilling so splendid a celestial destiny, is not immediately apparent. But crowds are moved by emotion; and emotion is rarely the friend of logic. The people began to mutter, to protest against this hanging, and, at last, to jostle and hinder the archers of the guard, so that these were forced to employ their staves in order to thrust back the press and open a way to the gallows.

The Sire de Vauvenargues, looking on from a balcony of the Stadhuis, began to ask himself if, after all, he had been wise in deliberately choosing an hour when the streets were thronged. If a riot were to ensue his harsh master, the Duke, would ask a stern account of him for the event and the dispositions which had made it possible. There was, however, no riot. Before the uncompromising attitude of the Burgundian archers and the resolute wielding of their staves, the crowd permitted prudence to override compassion. Had the Sire Tristan been a Ghenter it might have fallen out differently. But he was comparatively a stranger there, a gentleman of Hainault, and, after all, there was no reason why men of Ghent should get their heads broken on behalf of a Hainaulter, however young, comely and deserving of sympathy. They left him, therefore, to the protection of a Heaven which had already placed about his golden head that startling mark of favour. Heaven, however, showed no sign of intervening to prolong the young man's earthly life, for with his monkish companion he reached the foot of the scaffold and mounted its wooden steps. The Ducal Lieutenant, looking on from his balcony, was relieved.

Under the shadow of the cross-beam, from which the noosed rope of yellow hemp was dangling ominously, the Sire Tristan stood to address the people, as was the right of every man in his extremity. His face was grey; the brave smile on his lips was stiff, frozen and lifeless. Neither could his mind conceive nor his lips articulate any valedictory words for the people upon whom a hush of piteous attention had now fallen. But before the perception of his plight had time to arise, the general silence was broken by a cry, followed by a rapidly swelling and spreading hubbub.

It began at a corner of the square to the left of the Stadhuis, which the doomed man was facing, and appeared to have its source about a lady on a richly caparisoned white horse, for whom a number of grooms were labouring to open a way through the crowd, a way which opened of itself rapidly enough and almost joyously once her identity became known and her object—or at least some part of it—suspected.

She was the Lady Margaret of Saint-Gilles, the daughter of an opulent nobleman of Waes, and she shared the esteem and affection in which her father was held throughout Flanders, adding to it even by her own natural endowments. She was unknown to the Sire de Vauvenargues, who was a Burgundian lately brought from Dijon by the Duke and as yet unacquainted either with the persons or the customs of those to whom he dispensed justice in the Duke's name. But there was in her commanding beauty a passport to the favour of any man who was not withered to the marrow. And the Sire de Vauvenargues for all his cold austerity of manner and lean gravity of countenance, was still on the young side of fifty and far from destitute of gallantry. Disturbed though he might be again by these growing murmurs, yet the greater part of his attention at the moment was for this splendid figure in a trailing riding-dress of mulberry velvet, mounted on that richly caparisoned horse, for which the grooms were opening a way in his direction. She carried her head proudly, he observed, and as she neared the low balcony he occupied, he was almost dazzled by the effulgence of the dark blue eyes glowing in a face as pale as ivory. Her head was crowned by the tall steeple-shaped herrin, from which floated a misty veil of blue, and a jewel of price gleamed in the black frontlet across her brow, as if to proclaim her rank.

When first the eyes of the Sire Tristan had beheld her, a tremor had run through his limbs, a tinge of colour had crept into his pallid cheeks and life had returned to his lack-lustre gaze. It was as if the very sight of her had power to conquer his fear of death; as if all his consciousness were suddenly focused in his eyes, and seeing her, he saw nothing else, knew of nothing else.

The Captain of the Archers, standing behind him on the scaffold, had touched his shoulder and bidden him say his say, so that they might conclude the business and go home to dinner. The hangman and his valet had been growing impatient too. But now the attention of captain, of hangman and even of priest, like that of the multitude, was transferred from the doomed man to the lady on the white palfrey. The Sire Tristan had suddenly ceased to be the chief actor in this grim scene.

She had drawn rein immediately under that low balcony occupied by the Ducal Lieutenant, who, in his furred gown and chain of office, was attended by the Burgomaster van Genck and a group of officers. She lifted up her voice, a voice rich, sonorous and musical to match her splendid person.

"A boon, my Lord Lieutenant! I ask as a boon what by our ancient Flemish customs I have the right to claim; that I may be married to this man whom the Duke's justice is about to hang."

It occurred then to Tristan de Beloeil, who had missed no word of it, that all this was not real; that it was not happening at all; that he was still in his prison asleep and dreaming the incredible. The Sire de Vauvenargues, ignorant of those Flemish customs to which she appealed, may have had some similar thought. He flushed and scowled. It seemed to him that this request made a mock of his authority and of the justice of the Duke his master which should be executed with due solemnity of forms. He looked to right and to left, at the fat Burgomaster, grinning like an idol, at the frowning Burgundian captains and at the laughing, applauding people below. He turned to the lady with a curt contemptuous dismissal. But her beauty withered it on his lips. He contented himself with a cold announcement that what she asked was impossible.

Her answer by taking him too literally seemed further to exploit the mockery.

"Not so, my lord. There is a priest on the scaffold there to make it possible at once." Pale she might be; but she was singularly firm.

There was no tremor in her rich young voice, no faltering in the steady gaze of her deep blue eyes.

The Lieutenant's voice came harsher now and more impatient. "The request is unexampled, an effrontery! You delay the Duke's justice frivolously, Madame. It is outrageous!" Impulsively he raised his hand to signal to the Captain of the Archers, but found his arm caught in the grasp of the Burgomaster. Mynheer van Genck no longer grinned. His face was very grave, his eyes almost scared.

The laughter and applause below had suddenly changed to angry murmurs, which grew as they rippled through the ranks of the multitude. Clear above the inarticulate mutter of indignation came the shouted words:

"It is an honoured Flemish custom, Lord Lieutenant!"

"The Duke of Burgundy would not trample on our rights and privileges!"

"You are false to your trust, Lord Lieutenant, if you deny this lady!"

Despotic, cold and arrogant, the Sire de Vauvenargues might be; but he was not a fool; indeed, he was a man of some acuteness, else he would not have been raised by Charles of Burgundy to the eminence he occupied. He perceived himself confronted by something which he did not understand. He raised his hand for silence and patience, and was almost surprised by the readiness with which the signal was obeyed.

He turned for guidance to the Burgomaster.

"What is this, sir, of a custom, a right, a privilege?"

"It is as they tell you, my lord. It is an old Flemish custom which gives any woman the right to marry a doomed man on the scaffold, provided that he is marriageable."

The Lieutenant's lip curled. "A gruesome custom, faith! And a stupid one. What satisfaction lies in it?"

The Burgomaster shrugged and spread his podgy hands. "Can Your Excellency conceive of no case in which it would yield satisfaction?"

"With difficulty, my friend. But..." He shrugged in his turn, contemptuously. "I'll not provoke a riot by refusing so barren a favour." He leaned from the balcony. His harsh penetrating voice rang clear. "I bow to your Flemish privileges, Madame. Your request is granted in the Duke's name. I beg that you will make haste, so that we may conclude the unhappy business upon which we are here." He seemed to sneer as he spoke. But she took no heed of that. She thanked him shortly, and wheeled her horse about.

A lane opened readily enough through the crowd, and amid acclamations and laughter she came to alight at the foot of the scaffold and to mount its steps to where the Sire Tristan waited. He looked and felt as if he would swoon. He had been no paler when he stood beneath the rope to utter his last words. And now not even that stiff frozen smile which pride had dictated was to be seen upon his lips.

Gently, tenderly smiling, the Lady of Saint-Gilles confronted him. "Do you take me to wife, Sire Tristan?" she softly asked him, and thus seemed to increase his disorder.

His scared eyes sought her glance and fled from it; he made an almost convulsive movement of his arms. "Madame! Madame! Bethink you of yourself. I am not worthy that you should do this..."

"It is for me to be the judge of that. It is my wish. Will you deny me? Will you shame me by refusing me here before all these? That were to make me a by-word for all the days of my life."

He lowered his head, his face flaming scarlet. Subduing his voice, so that only she might hear him, he made his almost agonized protest. "You should not..." he was beginning, when she interrupted him, sensing what he was about to say.

"Perhaps I should not." Her voice was almost wistful now. "But it is done. I am committed to it." A great sadness seemed to invest her. "Dismiss me if you will..."

He fell on his knees before her there in the sight of all, and it was a spectacle that thrilled the audience. "Lady, it is my worthlessness is the only barrier."

With one hand she raised him, with the other she beckoned forward the priest.

Messire Tristan protested no more. He could not make a mock of her by refusing this precious gift of herself which he knew she must offer out of pity for him.

Swiftly the vows were exchanged, the words of the nuptial blessing uttered, binding them irrevocably; and already, to the wild acclamations of the crowd, she was leading him by the hand towards the steps of the scaffold, when the Burgundian captain intervened.

"Gently, gently, lady!" His gauntleted hand closed upon the Sire Tristan's arm. "You'll leave your husband with us, if you please."

The crowd perceived his action, those nearest even overheard his words, and he was answered instantly by a roar of fury from a thousand throats. Fists were shaken at him, weapons brandished, and at once the multitude surged forward like a tide to whelm the scaffold. Below, his well-trained archers, shoulder to shoulder, made a bulwark against which that first charge spent itself in vain. But other charges would follow which must overwhelm them. He did not understand, being like the Sire de Vauvenargues, a newcomer in these outlying Burgundian dominions. He raised his hand, and at the same time turned towards the Stadhuis balcony for instructions.

The crowd, perceiving this, trusting that orders would follow to correct this rash officer, paused and fell silent. At the head of the steps the Lady Margaret and her bridegroom stood arrested, waiting.

On the balcony the Sire de Vauvenargues was expressing his indignation to the Burgomaster.

"What is this? I accord the boon, I bow to your ridiculous Flemish custom and this is how your people requite me. If insubordination to the Duke's..."

The Burgomaster interrupted him. There was almost a sly humour about the sleek little man.

"By your leave, my lord! I fear you have not quite understood. This old Flemish custom, to the exercise of which you so wisely consented, runs that a marriage-knot tied at the gallows rescues a doomed neck from the halter."

"Ventredieu!" swore the Ducal Lieutenant in his amazement. Then his anger mounted again! "Why did you not tell me this?"

"I did not think there was the need. The inference seemed plain. What point else would there be in such a marriage?"

"Did you not hear me complain that I found it pointless? You have fooled me, sir. At least, you have tried to fool me. But I am not a man easily fooled, and Burgundian justice is not so easily cozened. That rascal hangs as surely as—"

"In God's name!" The Burgomaster spoke in dread and horror. "You might have escaped a riot by firmness before. You cannot now. You might have refused to admit the custom. Having admitted it, you cannot trample upon it. You must perceive that, my lord."

"I perceive that you mock me! I perceive that, by God!" He did, and for all the rage that set him white and quivering, he perceived something more. He perceived that he was on the horns of a dilemma. If he provoked a riot, as he must if he insisted now upon justice being done, he would anon have to face the anger of the Duke. If, submitting to this clamour, he suffered Burgundian justice to be set aside, he would similarly incur his master's anger. Whatever happened now, the Duke would demand an account of him.

That was the situation into which this sly Burgomaster—the friend, of course, of all Flemish rogues—had manoeuvred him. And then he saw light. It was not a bright or encouraging light. But it was the best that the circumstances left him. He would postpone execution whilst referring the whole matter to the Duke. Thus he would avoid, or appear in ducal eyes to avoid, some measure of this hideous responsibility now thrust upon him.

He swallowed his pride and arrogance so as to make the announcement in conciliatory terms.

He complained that he had not been aware of the full import of the custom when he gave his consent to the marriage. But, having given it, he could not do violence to Flemish privileges by insisting now upon the execution of the just sentence passed yesterday in his court upon the Sire Tristan de Beloeil. Applause greeted the admission, and he was forced to pause until this had subsided before adding that, on the other hand, being no more than a servant and mouthpiece of His Highness the Duke of Burgundy, whose loyal faithful subjects they all were, it was not in his power to do violence to Burgundian justice by allowing the prisoner to go free.

He was interrupted again, this time by a storm of protests and even threats. When at last he was able to resume it was to make an even further immolation of his pride, by casting himself, as it were, upon the mercy of the people. He represented himself as a man in an extremely difficult situation, a situation indeed of such difficulty that it was beyond the power of his office to resolve it; wherefore he had no choice but to refer the whole matter to the Duke himself. He added, however, and quickly before they could again interrupt him, an assurance that in laying the matter before his Highness, he would himself plead the cause of the prisoner if it became necessary and urge observance of the Flemish custom to which appeal had been made. He could not think that the Duke would desire to violate it, but he dared not take the responsibility of acting upon that assumption. He closed his little oration in conciliatory words, which almost choked him, whereby again he cast himself upon their mercy.

Despite this unusual humility in a Ducal Lieutenant, he would not have won out of his difficulty so easily if the little Burgomaster who had so deliberately tricked him into it had not come now to his assistance by endorsing all that he had said, supporting his appeal and even adding a word of warning as to the consequences of any rioting. This warning, which, from the Ducal Lieutenant in such an hour would have had the effect of infuriating the people, was heeded by them because coming from their own Burgomaster. There were offensive and rebellious mutterings, it is true. But no resistance was offered to the removal of the prisoner under guard, and presently the people dispersed, the more speedily perhaps because the hour of dinner was already over-past.

That same afternoon the Ducal Lieutenant set out for Brussels with the Sire Tristan and an escort of fifty Burgundian lances. He submitted to the Lady Margaret's insistence to attach herself and her attendants to his train, since it was not really in his power to prevent it. But he bore the Lady Margaret no love for the difficulty in which she had placed him, and he refused her permission to communicate in any way with his prisoner, however much that same prisoner might now be her husband.

This was distressing not only to her, but also to the Sire Tristan, who was still all bemused and bewildered by the event, and who desired at least an opportunity of expressing his gratitude and some other things to her before they strung him up, as he was quite convinced that they would presently be doing.

Travelling swiftly they reached Brussels late that night, too late for audience. The Sire de Vauvenargues bestowed his prisoner in one of the dungeons of the Cour des Princes, where the Duke had his residence, quartered his men, and went to seek a lodging for himself in the palace. The Lady Margaret made shift for herself and her attendants at the Lion of Brabant, whither the Sire de Vauvernargues grudgingly undertook to send her word in the morning of the ducal decision.

Betimes next day he presented himself for the bad quarter of an hour which he had every reason to expect. He was introduced to the Duke's closet and received with a scowl such as that with which he, himself, was in the habit of intimidating suppliants.

"By what authority, sir, do you leave your government?" the Duke demanded before the Sire de Vauvenargues had time to speak.

He bent himself almost double. "I trust the case, when your Highness shall have heard it, will justify me."

"Is there a revolt among these mutinous Ghenters?" The Duke detested all Flemings, and of all Flemings he detested the Ghenters most, having had a taste of their insubordinate quality.

"There might have been had I not decided to seek the guidance of Your Highness."

"So, so!" The young prince heaved himself up. A man of middle height was this Charles of Burgundy, whom history knows as the Temerarious, powerfully built and swarthy of complexion which with the dark eyes and black hair advertised the Portuguese extraction of which he was so proud. His countenance might have been handsome but for the forward thrust of his aggressive jaw. He was dressed with sober richness, his pleated pourpoint of purple velvet latticed with gold across his breast, and he wore for only ornament the collar of the Golden Fleece about his sturdy neck. Harsh, impetuous, choleric of nature, the very suggestion of insubordination to his authority now put him in a passion, and he loosed it in threats of what he would do to make the Ghenters realize once for all that he was master. Thereafter he invited his Lieutenant to state the case.

Sire de Vauvenargues told his tale none too well. The Duke's manner did not help him. Therefore it was some little time before His Highness caught the drift of it. When at last he did, he laughed ferociously.

"So that the threatened revolt, then, was of your making, Sir Lieutenant?"

"Of my making, Highness! I did not know—"

"Just so. You did not know and had not the wit to inform yourself, nor indeed, it seems, the wit to discharge any part of your duties. First you choose to make a public show of this hanging, appointing for it the hour when the looms are deserted and all these turbulent weavers in the streets; then you pledge me to a crazy custom which makes a mock of my justice. But my justice, sir, is not to be mocked. So you will get you back to Ghent with your prisoner and there execute the sentence you passed upon him in my name."

The Lieutenant was aghast. "If I hang him, the Ghenters will certainly hang me afterwards."

"God give them joy of it," said the Duke. "What else are you fit for?"

"Nothing else if Your Highness thinks so. But to hang me is, after all, in a sense to hang Your Highness, since I am Your Highness' representative."

The Duke merely sneered. "I could bear to be hanged by proxy. Indeed, it will be a satisfaction if you are the proxy. And it will give me the right to read these Ghenters the sharp lesson in submission which they appear to need. I will avenge you roundly. Be comforted by that."

But the Sire de Vauvenargues saw no comfort in it. He was actually driven by the prospect to become in earnest the advocate of the Sire Tristan. "Highness, if I dare presume so far, since the error is committed, is it prudent, or...or...even expedient to allow the life of one man to...to..."

The glare of the ducal eye brought him faltering into silence.

"It is not the life of a man that is in question. It is my authority. Don't you see that you have placed me on the horns of a dilemma? Your blundering gives me to choose between a riot, perhaps a revolt, in Ghent, and the flouting of my laws. There can be no hesitation for me. This man of yours must hang whatever the consequences and in spite of all Flemish customs." Then contemptuously he added: "Show me how to avoid it without weakness and I will overlook your wooden-headed blundering which is responsible."

If the Sire de Vauvenargues felt, as many another has felt, that the service of princes is the service of the thankless, he choked the feeling down, and applied his wits to discovering a way of escape for himself.

"If, Highness," he suggested, "in your revision of the case, you were to discover that my sentence had been unduly severe, there would no longer be any question of pardoning the offender or bowing to any custom. Both would be avoided. Your Highness would simply cancel my sentence and reprimand me."

The Duke raised his black brows; his eyes gleamed momentarily from some inward quickening. Then he was frowning again.

"Tell me this man's offence again," he commanded. "Let me understand it clearly."

Nothing could have been clearer than the account the Lieutenant had already rendered. And all that he could now do was to repeat it. When he had done so there followed a long pause whilst the Duke's dark eyes pondered him inscrutably. Suddenly they blazed, and his harsh voice was raised.

"By St George!" he swore. "And do you sentence men of birth to death in Ghent upon no better grounds?" He raged on from that, heaping invective upon the head of the unfortunate Lieutenant, who could not be sure whether His Highness was snatching at a pretext to avoid the real issue, and merely acting, or whether he was sincere. In this doubt he found it necessary to defend himself.

"The orders of Your Highness left me no doubt or choice—"

"Will you argue with me, wooden-head?" The Duke's fury lashed him. "Get you back to Ghent, and remember what I have said. I will deal myself with this prisoner of yours."

The Sire de Vauvenargues went out backwards, thankful to make his escape, convinced that the Duke's anger was so much make-believe, and more persuaded than ever that the service of princes was as thankless as it was perilous.

The Sire Tristan de Beloeil, brought before the Duke, was clearly informed that His Highness, having sifted the matter of his offence, had reached the conclusion that in the sentence passed upon him the Ducal Lieutenant in Ghent had used him with excessive rigour. It was because of this, and because of this only, and not out of deference to any plaguy Flemish customs—and the Sire Tristan was desired to publish the matter widely upon his return to Ghent, lest a misunderstanding of the facts might lead others into error—that he was permitted to go free and rejoin the lady who had perhaps rashly taken him to husband.

That lady the Sire Tristan found at the Lion of Brabant when presently he came there, conducted by one of her attendants who had lain in wait for him in the courtyard of the Cour des Princes. Of all the trials and anxieties that had been his since he was sentenced, this was by no means the least he was called upon to face. He entered her presence in trepidation. She rose in a trepidation still deeper to receive him.

For a long moment they just stared at each other across the width of the room in which they found themselves alone together.

"Madame," he said, between plaintiveness and reproach, "why have you done this?"

"Surely, surely, sir, the reason is plain." She was still a little short of breath; but her words came glibly, almost as a lesson learnt by heart. "It is in the consequences. To save your life. I know I forced it upon you. You could not humiliate me by preferring the hangman's knot to mine. You were too gallant for that. But I hoped that the sweetness of life itself would make amends. That you would choose to avoid the bitterness of death at any price."

"At any price!" he echoed, with a little twisted smile on his pale lips. "Yes. At any price to myself. But not at any price to you, Madame."

He saw her eyes quicken at that, saw the flush that crept into her pallid cheeks. "But if I was glad to pay the price?"

At that he fell to trembling. "It is not possible, Madame."

"Is it not?" She laughed a little, but sadly. "Does it need that I tell you what it was that urged me to save your life; or are you under the impression that I make a habit of rescuing men from the gallows by marrying them?" She paused. "Although I am your reluctantly espoused wife, I beg that you will spare me a deeper avowal."

He gazed, bewildered, at this lovely lady whom he had silently worshipped in the past, between whom and himself hitherto no single word of love had ever been uttered. She hung her head, her trouble deepened by his silence.

"I cannot have done you a great wrong," she murmured. "At least you have your life. Surely it is better to live even in a wedlock that is not of your own choosing than not to live at all. I beg—I implore that you will do me the charity to say at least so much."

What he said was something very different. "You knew," he asked her, "why I was to have been hanged?"

She looked at him, a puzzled frown between her fine brows. "Because you wounded Messire van der Schuylen in an irregular duel which had no proper witnesses."

"Ah yes. But why I fought him?"

"How could I know that, since you refused to disclose it even at your trial? It was your silence that provoked your sentence."

He smiled now, and advanced a little. "You do not ask. Have you no curiosity? It was because he spoke lightly of you, Madame."

It was her turn to tremble. He saw the colour fade again from her cheeks, the widening stare of her eyes and the tumult at her breast.

"Of me?" She pressed a hand to her heart. "It was for that...for me, that you fought? Why?"

"Madame, must you be asking? Do you not know the answer? For the same reason that moved you to rescue me."

After that they continued gazing raptly at each other, until at last they fell to laughing, joyously as children laugh.

If there had been between them no wooing such as usually precedes wedlock, they perceived that they might make blissful amends for it now that they were man and wife.