The House of the Wolf
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Stanley Weyman >> The House of the Wolf
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"She had failed you know to get her sister back to Pavannes'
house, where she would have fallen an easy victim. Bezers, who
knew Madame d'O, prevented that. Then that fiend slipped back
with her knife; thinking that in the common butchery the crime
would be overlooked, and never investigated, and that Mirepoix
would be silent!"
I said nothing. I was stunned. Yet I believed the story. When
I went over the facts in my mind I found that a dozen things,
overlooked at the time and almost forgotten in the hurry of
events, sprang up to confirm it. M. de Pavannes'--the other M.
de Pavannes'--suspicions had been well founded. Worse than
Bezers was she? Ay! worse a hundred times. As much worse as
treachery ever is than violence; as the pitiless fraud of the
serpent is baser than the rage of the wolf.
"I thought," Croisette added softly, not looking at me, "when I
discovered that you had gone off with her, that I should never
see you again, Anne. I gave you up for lost. The happiest
moment of my life I think was when I saw you come back."
"Croisette," I whispered piteously, my cheeks burning, "let us
never speak of her again."
And we never did--for years. But how strange is life. She and
the wicked man with whom her fate seemed bound up had just
crossed our lives when their own were at the darkest. They
clashed with us, and, strangers and boys as we were, we ruined
them. I have often asked myself what would have happened to me
had I met her at some earlier and less stormy period--in the
brilliance of her beauty. And I find but one answer. I should
bitterly have rued the day. Providence was good to me. Such men
and such women, we may believe have ceased to exist now. They
flourished in those miserable days of war and divisions, and
passed away with them like the foul night-birds of the battle-
field.
To return to our journey. In the morning sunshine one could not
but be cheerful, and think good things possible. The worst trial
I had came with each sunset. For then--we generally rode late
into the evening--Louis sought my side to talk to me of his
sweetheart. And how he would talk of her! How many thousand
messages he gave me for her! How often he recalled old days
among the hills, with each laugh and jest and incident, when we
five had been as children! Until I would wonder passionately,
the tears running down my face in the darkness, how he could--how
he could talk of her in that quiet voice which betrayed no
rebellion against fate, no cursing of Providence! How he could
plan for her and think of her when she should be alone!
Now I understand it. He was still labouring under the shock of
his friends' murder. He was still partially stunned. Death
seemed natural and familiar to him, as to one who had seen his
allies and companions perish without warning or preparation.
Death had come to be normal to him, life the exception; as I have
known it seem to a child brought face to face with a corpse for
the first time.
One afternoon a strange thing happened. We could see the
Auvergne hills at no great distance on our left--the Puy de Dome
above them--and we four were riding together. We had fallen--an
unusual thing--to the rear of the party. Our road at the moment
was a mere track running across moorland, sprinkled here and
there with gorse and brushwood. The main company had straggled
on out of sight. There were but half a dozen riders to be seen
an eighth of a league before us, a couple almost as far behind.
I looked every way with a sudden surging of the heart. For the
first time the possibility of flight occurred to me. The rough
Auvergne hills were within reach. Supposing we could get a lead
of a quarter of a league, we could hardly be caught before
darkness came and covered us. Why should we not put spurs to our
horses and ride off?
"Impossible!" said Pavannes quietly, when I spoke.
"Why?" I asked with warmth.
"Firstly," he replied, "because I have given my word to go with
the Vidame to Cahors."
My face flushed hotly. But I cried, "What of that? You were
taken by treachery! Your safe conduct was disregarded. Why
should you be scrupulous? Your enemies are not. This is folly?"
"I think not. Nay," Louis answered, shaking his head, "you would
not do it yourself in my place."
"I think I should," I stammered awkwardly.
"No, you would not, lad," he said smiling. "I know you too well.
But if I would do it, it is impossible." He turned in the saddle
and, shading his eyes with his hand from the level rays of the
sun, looked back intently. "It is as I thought," he continued.
"One of those men is riding grey Margot, which Bure said
yesterday was the fastest mare in the troop. And the man on her
is a light weight. The other fellow has that Norman bay horse we
were looking at this morning. It is a trap laid by Bezers, Anne.
If we turned aside a dozen yards, those two would be after us
like the wind."
"Do you mean," I cried, "that Bezers has drawn his men forward on
purpose?"
"Precisely;" was Louis's answer. "That is the fact. Nothing
would please him better than to take my honour first, and my life
afterwards. But, thank God, only the one is in his power."
And when I came to look at the horsemen, immediately before us,
they confirmed Louis's view. They were the best mounted of the
party: all men of light weight too. One or other of them was
constantly looking back. As night fell they closed in upon us
with their usual care. When Bure joined us there was a gleam of
intelligence in his bold eyes, a flash of conscious trickery. He
knew that we had found him out, and cared nothing for it.
And the others cared nothing. But the thought that if left to
myself I should have fallen into the Vidame's cunning trap filled
me with new hatred towards him; such hatred and such fear--for
there was humiliation mingled with them--as I had scarcely felt
before. I brooded over this, barely noticing what passed in our
company for hours--nay, not until the next day when, towards
evening, the cry arose round me that we were within sight of
Cahors. Yes, there it lay below us, in its shallow basin,
surrounded by gentle hills. The domes of the cathedral, the
towers of the Vallandre Bridge, the bend of the Lot, where its
stream embraces the town--I knew them all. Our long journey was
over.
And I had but one idea. I had some time before communicated to
Croisette the desperate design I had formed--to fall upon Bezers
and kill him in the midst of his men in the last resort. Now the
time had come if the thing was ever to be done: if we had not
left it too long already. And I looked about me. There was some
confusion and jostling as we halted on the brow of the hill,
while two men were despatched ahead to announce the governor's
arrival, and Bure, with half a dozen spears, rode out as an
advanced guard.
The road where we stood was narrow, a shallow cutting winding
down the declivity of the hills. The horses were tired, It was a
bad time and place for my design, and only the coming night was
in my favour. But I was desperate.
Yet before I moved or gave a signal which nothing could recall, I
scanned the landscape eagerly, scrutinizing in turn the small,
rich plain below us, warmed by the last rays of the sun, the bare
hills here glowing, there dark, the scattered wood-clumps and
spinneys that filled the angles of the river, even the dusky line
of helm-oaks that crowned the ridge beyond--Caylus way. So near
our own country there might be help! If the messenger whom we
had despatched to the Vicomte before leaving home had reached
him, our uncle might have returned, and even be in Cahors to meet
us.
But no party appeared in sight: and I saw no place where an
ambush could be lying. I remembered that no tidings of our
present plight or of what had happened could have reached the
Vicomte. The hope faded out of life as soon as despair had given
it birth. We must fend for ourselves and for Kit.
That was my justification. I leaned from my saddle towards
Croisette--I was riding by his side--and muttered, as I felt my
horse's head and settled myself firmly in the stirrups, "You
remember what I said? Are you ready?"
He looked at me in a startled way, with a face showing white in
the shadow: and from me to the one solitary figure seated like a
pillar a score of paces in front with no one between us and it.
"There need be but two of us," I muttered, loosening my sword.
"Shall it be you or Marie? The others must leap their horses out
of the road in the confusion, cross the river at the Arembal Ford
if they are not overtaken, and make for Caylus."
He hesitated. I do not know whether it had anything to do with
his hesitation that at that moment the cathedral bell in the town
below us began to ring slowly for Vespers. Yes, he hesitated.
He--a Caylus. Turning to him again, I repeated my question
impatiently. "Which shall it be? A moment, and we shall be
moving on, and it will be too late."
He laid his hand hurriedly on my bridle, and began a rambling
answer. Rambling as it was I gathered his meaning. It was
enough for me! I cut him short with one word of fiery
indignation, and turned to Marie and spoke quickly. "Will you,
then?" I said.
But Marie shook his head in perplexity, and answering little,
said the same. So it happened a second time.
Strange! Yet strange as it seemed, I was not greatly surprised.
Under other circumstances I should have been beside myself with
anger at the defection. Now I felt as if I had half expected it,
and without further words of reproach I dropped my head and gave
it up. I passed again into the stupor of endurance. The Vidame
was too strong for me. It was useless to fight against him. We
were under the spell. When the troop moved forward, I went with
them, silent and apathetic.
We passed through the gate of Cahors, and no doubt the scene was
worthy of note; but I had only a listless eye for it--much such
an eye as a man about to be broken on the wheel must have for
that curious instrument, supposing him never to have seen it
before. The whole population had come out to line the streets
through which we rode, and stood gazing, with scarcely veiled
looks of apprehension, at the procession of troopers and the
stern face of the new governor.
We dismounted passively in the courtyard of the castle, and were
for going in together, when Bure intervened. "M. de Pavannes,"
he said, pushing rather rudely between us, "will sup alone to-
night. For you, gentlemen, this way, if you please."
I went without remonstrance. What was the use? I was conscious
that the Vidame from the top of the stairs leading to the grand
entrance was watching us with a wolfish glare in his eyes. I
went quietly. But I heard Croisette urging something with
passionate energy.
We were led through a low doorway to a room on the ground floor;
a place very like a cell. Were we took our meal in silence.
When it was over I flung myself on one of the beds prepared for
us, shrinking from my companions rather in misery than in
resentment.
No explanation had passed between us. Still I knew that the
other two from time to time eyed me doubtfully. I feigned
therefore to be asleep, but I heard Bure enter to bid us good-
night--and see that we had not escaped. And I was conscious too
of the question Croisette put to him, "Does M. de Pavannes lie
alone to-night, Bure?"
"Not entirely," the captain answered with gloomy meaning. Indeed
he seemed in bad spirits himself, or tired. "The Vidame is
anxious for his soul's welfare, and sends a priest to him."
They sprang to their feet at that. But the light and its bearer,
who so far recovered himself as to chuckle at his master's pious
thought, had disappeared. They were left to pace the room, and
reproach themselves and curse the Vidame in an agony of late
repentance. Not even Marie could find a loop-hole of escape from
here. The door was double-locked; the windows so barred that a
cat could scarcely pass through them; the walls were of solid
masonry.
Meanwhile I lay and feigned to sleep, and lay feigning through
long, long hours; though my heart like theirs throbbed in
response to the dull hammering that presently began without, and
not far from us, and lasted until daybreak. From our windows,
set low and facing a wall, we could see nothing. But we could
guess what the noise meant, the dull, earthy thuds when posts
were set in the ground, the brisk, wooden clattering when one
plank was laid to another. We could not see the progress of the
work, or hear the voices of the workmen, or catch the glare of
their lights. But we knew what they were doing. They were
raising the scaffold.
CHAPTER XII.
JOY IN THE MORNING.
I was too weary with riding to go entirely without sleep. And
moreover it is anxiety and the tremor of excitement which make
the pillow sleepless, not, heaven be thanked, sorrow. God made
man to lie awake and hope: but never to lie awake and grieve.
An hour or two before daybreak I fell asleep, utterly worn out.
When I awoke, the sun was high, and shining slantwise on our
window. The room was gay with the morning rays, and soft with
the morning freshness, and I lay a while, my cheek on my hand,
drinking in the cheerful influence as I had done many and many a
day in our room at Caylus. It was the touch of Marie's hand,
laid timidly on my arm, which roused me with a shock to
consciousness. The truth broke upon me. I remembered where we
were, and what was before us. "Will you get up, Anne?"
Croisette said. "The Vidame has sent for us."
I got to my feet, and buckled on my sword. Croisette was leaning
against the wall, pale and downcast. Bure filled the open
doorway, his feathered cap in his hand, a queer smile on his
face. "You are a good sleeper, young gentleman," he said. "You
should have a good conscience."
"Better than yours, no doubt!" I retorted, "or your master's."
He shrugged his shoulders, and, bidding us by a sign to follow
him, led the way through several gloomy passages. At the end of
these, a flight of stone steps leading upwards seemed to promise
something better; and true enough, the door at the top being
opened, the murmur of a crowd reached our ears, with a burst of
sunlight and warmth. We were in a lofty room, with walls in some
places painted, and elsewhere hung with tapestry; well lighted by
three old pointed windows reaching to the rush-covered floor.
The room was large, set here and there with stands of arms, and
had a dais with a raised carved chair at one end. The ceiling
was of blue, with gold stars set about it. Seeing this, I
remembered the place. I had been in it once, years ago, when I
had attended the Vicomte on a state visit to the governor. Ah!
that the Vicomte were here now!
I advanced to the middle window, which was open. Then I started
back, for outside was the scaffold built level with the floor,
and rush-covered like it! Two or three people were lounging on
it. My eyes sought Louis among the group, but in vain. He was
not there: and while I looked for him, I heard a noise behind
me, and he came in, guarded by four soldiers with pikes.
His face was pale and grave, but perfectly composed. There was a
wistful look in his eyes indeed, as if he were thinking of
something or some one far away--Kit's face on the sunny hills of
Quercy where he had ridden with her, perhaps; a look which seemed
to say that the doings here were nothing to him, and the parting
was yonder where she was. But his bearing was calm and
collected, his step firm and fearless. When he saw us, indeed
his face lightened a moment and he greeted us cheerfully, even
acknowledging Bure's salutation with dignity and good temper.
Croisette sprang towards him impulsively, and cried his name--
Croisette ever the first to speak. But before Louis could grasp
his hand, the door at the bottom of the hall was swung open, and
the Vidame came hurriedly in.
He was alone. He glanced round, his forbidding face, which was
somewhat flushed as if by haste, wearing a scowl. Then he saw
us, and, nodding haughtily, strode up the floor, his spurs
clanking heavily on the boards. We gave us no greeting, but by a
short word dismissed Bure and the soldiers to the lower end of
the room. And then he stood and looked at us four, but
principally at his rival; and looked, and looked with eyes of
smouldering hate. And there was a silence, a long silence, while
the murmur of the crowd came almost cheerfully through the
window, and the sparrows under the eaves chirped and twittered,
and the heart that throbbed least painfully was, I do believe,
Louis de Pavannes'!
At last Bezers broke the silence.
"M. de Pavannes!" he began, speaking hoarsely, yet concealing
all passion under a cynical smile and a mock politeness, "M. de
Pavannes, I hold the king's commission to put to death all the
Huguenots within my province of Quercy. Have you anything to
say, I beg, why I should not begin with you? Or do you wish to
return to the Church?"
Louis shrugged his shoulders as in contempt, and held his peace,
I saw his captor's great hands twitch convulsively at this, but
still the Vidame mastered himself, and when he spoke again he
spoke slowly. "Very well," he continued, taking no heed of us,
the silent witnesses of this strange struggle between the two
men, but eyeing Louis only. "You have wronged me more than any
man alive. Alive or dead! or dead! You have thwarted me, M. de
Pavannes, and taken from me the woman I loved. Six days ago I
might have killed you. I had it in my power. I had but to leave
you to the rabble, remember, and you would have been rotting at
Montfaucon to-day, M. de Pavannes."
"That is true," said Louis quietly. "Why so many words?"
But the Vidame went on as if he had not heard. "I did not leave
you to them," he resumed, "and yet I hate you--more than I ever
hated any man yet, and I am not apt to forgive. But now the time
has come, sir, for my revenge! The oath I swore to your mistress
a fortnight ago I will keep to the letter. I--Silence, babe!"
he thundered, turning suddenly, "or I will keep my word with you
too!"
Croisette had muttered something, and this had drawn on him the
glare of Bezers' eyes. But the threat was effectual. Croisette
was silent. The two were left henceforth to one another.
Yet the Vidame seemed to be put out by the interruption.
Muttering a string of oaths he strode from us to the window and
back again. The cool cynicism, with which he was wont to veil
his anger and impose on other men, while it heightened the effect
of his ruthless deeds, in part fell from him. He showed himself
as he was--masterful, and violent, hating, with all the strength
of a turbulent nature which had never known a check. I quailed
before him myself. I confess it.
"Listen!" he continued harshly, coming back and taking his place
in front of us at last, his manner more violent than before the
interruption. "I might have left you to die in that hell yonder!
And I did not leave you. I had but to hold my hand and you would
have been torn to pieces! The wolf, however, does not hunt with
the rats, and a Bezers wants no help in his vengeance from king
or CANAILLE! When I hunt my enemy down I will hunt him alone, do
you hear? And as there is a heaven above me"--he paused a
moment--"if I ever meet you face to face again, M. de Pavannes, I
will kill you where you stand!"
He paused, and the murmur of the crowd without came to my ears;
but mingled with and heightened by some confusion in my thoughts.
I struggled feebly with this, seeing a rush of colour to
Croisette's face, a lightening in his eyes as if a veil had been
raised from before them. Some confusion--for I thought I grasped
the Vidame's meaning; yet there he was still glowering on his
victim with the same grim visage, still speaking in the same
rough tone. "Listen, M. de Pavannes," he continued, rising to
his full height and waving his hand with a certain majesty
towards the window--no one had spoken. "The doors are open! Your
mistress is at Caylus. The road is clear, go to her; go to her,
and tell her that I have saved your life, and that I give it to
you not out of love, but out of hate! If you had flinched I
would have killed you, for so you would have suffered most, M. de
Pavannes. As it is, take your life--a gift! and suffer as I
should if I were saved and spared by my enemy!"
Slowly the full sense of his words came home to me. Slowly; not
in its full completeness indeed until I heard Louis in broken
phrases, phrases half proud and half humble, thanking him for his
generosity. Even then I almost lost the true and wondrous
meaning of the thing when I heard his answer. For he cut
Pavannes short with bitter caustic gibes, spurned his proffered
gratitude with insults, and replied to his acknowledgments with
threats.
"Go! go!" he continued to cry violently. "Have I brought you
so far safely that you will cheat me of my vengeance at the last,
and provoke me to kill you? Away! and take these blind puppies
with you! Reckon me as much your enemy now as ever! And if I
meet you, be sure you will meet a foe! Begone, M. de Pavannes,
begone!"
"But, M. de Bezers," Louis persisted, "hear me. It takes two
to--"
"Begone! begone! before we do one another a mischief!" cried
the Vidame furiously. "Every word you say in that strain is an
injury to me. It robs me of my vengeance. Go! in God's name!"
And we went; for there was no change, no promise of softening in
his malignant aspect as he spoke; nor any as he stood and watched
us draw off slowly from him. We went one by one, each lingering
after the other, striving, out of a natural desire to thank him,
to break through that stern reserve. But grim and unrelenting, a
picture of scorn to the last, he saw us go.
My latest memory of that strange man--still fresh after a lapse
of two and fifty years--is of a huge form towering in the gloom
below the state canopy, the sunlight which poured in through the
windows and flooded us, falling short of him; of a pair of fierce
cross eyes, that seemed to glow as they covered us; of a lip that
curled as in the enjoyment of some cruel jest. And so I--and I
think each of us four saw the last of Raoul de Mar, Vidame de
Bezers, in this life.
He was a man whom we cannot judge by to-day's standard; for he
was such an one in his vices and his virtues as the present day
does not know; one who in his time did immense evil--and if his
friends be believed, little good. But the evil is forgotten; the
good lives. And if all that good save one act were buried with
him, this one act alone, the act of a French gentleman, would be
told of him--ay! and will be told--as long as the kingdom of
France, and the gracious memory of the late king, shall endure.
* * * * * *
I see again by the simple process of shutting my eyes, the little
party of five--for Jean, our servant, had rejoined us--who on
that summer day rode over the hills to Caylus, threading the
mazes of the holm-oaks, and galloping down the rides, and
hallooing the hare from her form, but never pursuing her;
arousing the nestling farmhouses from their sleepy stillness by
joyous shout and laugh, and sniffing, as we climbed the hill-side
again, the scent of the ferns that died crushed under our horses'
hoofs--died only that they might add one little pleasure more to
the happiness God had given us. Rare and sweet indeed are those
few days in life, when it seems that all creation lives only that
we may have pleasure in it, and thank God for it. It is well
that we should make the most of them, as we surely did of that
day.
It was nightfall when we reached the edge of the uplands, and
looked down on Caylus. The last rays of the sun lingered with
us, but the valley below was dark; so dark that even the rock
about which our homes clustered would have been invisible save
for the half-dozen lights that were beginning to twinkle into
being on its summit. A silence fell upon us as we slowly wended
our way down the well-known path.
All day long we had ridden in great joy; if thoughtless, yet
innocent; if selfish, yet thankful; and always blithely, with a
great exultation and relief at heart, a great rejoicing for our
own sakes and for Kit's.
Now with the nightfall and the darkness, now when we were near
our home, and on the eve of giving joy to another, we grew
silent. There arose other thoughts--thoughts of all that had
happened since we had last ascended that track; and so our minds
turned naturally back to him to whom we owed our happiness--to
the giant left behind in his pride and power and his loneliness.
The others could think of him with full hearts, yet without
shame. But I reddened, reflecting how it would have been with us
if I had had my way; if I had resorted in my shortsightedness to
one last violent, cowardly deed, and killed him, as I had twice
wished to do.
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