Under the Red Robe
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Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
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UNDER THE RED ROBE
by
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
*
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. AT ZATON'S
CHAPTER II. AT THE GREEN PILLAR
CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD
CHAPTER IV. MADAM AND MADEMOISELLE
CHAPTER V. REVENGE
CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE PlC DU MIDI
CHAPTER VII. A MASTER STROKE
CHAPTER VIII. A MASTER STROKE--Continued
CHAPTER IX. THE QUESTION
CHAPTER X. CLON
CHAPTER XI. THE ARREST
CHAPTER XII. THE ROAD TO PARIS
CHAPTER XIII. AT THE FINGER-POST
CHAPTER XIV. ST MARTIN'S EVE
CHAPTER XV. ST MARTIN'S SUMMER
*
UNDER THE RED ROBE
CHAPTER I
AT ZATON'S
'Marked cards!'
There were a score round us when the fool, little knowing the man
with whom he had to deal, and as little how to lose like a
gentleman, flung the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll be
sworn, that I should storm and swear and ruffle it like any
common cock of the hackle. But that was never Gil de Berault's
way. For a few seconds after he had spoken I did not even look
at him. I passed my eye instead--smiling, BIEN ENTENDU--round
the ring of waiting faces, saw that there was no one except De
Pombal I had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and looked at
the fool with the grim face I have known impose on older and
wiser men.
'Marked cards, M. l'Anglais?' I said, with a chilling sneer.
'They are used, I am told, to trap players--not unbirched
schoolboys.'
'Yet I say that they are marked!' he replied hotly, in his queer
foreign jargon. 'In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the
stakes. Bah, sir, you knew! You have swindled me!'
'Monsieur is easy to swindle--when he plays with a mirror behind
him,' I answered tartly.
At that there was a great roar of laughter, which might have been
heard in the street, and which brought to the table everyone in
the eating-house whom his voice had not already attracted. But I
did not relax my face. I waited until all was quiet again, and
then waving aside two or three who stood between us and the
entrance, I pointed gravely to the door.
'There is a little space behind the church of St Jacques, M.
l'Etranger,' I said, putting on my hat and taking my cloak on my
arm. 'Doubtless you will accompany me thither?'
He snatched up his hat, his face burning with shame and rage.
'With pleasure!' he blurted out. 'To the devil, if you like!'
I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis laid his hand on
the young fellow's arm and checked him.
'This must not be,' he said, turning from him to me with his
grand, fine-gentleman's air. 'You know me, M. de Berault. This
matter has gone far enough.'
'Too far! M. de Pombal,' I answered bitterly. 'Still, if you
wish to take your friend's place, I shall raise no objection.'
'Chut, man!' he retorted, shrugging his shoulders negligently.
'I know you, and I do not fight with men of your stamp. Nor need
this gentleman.'
'Undoubtedly,' I replied, bowing low, 'if he prefers to be caned
in the streets.'
That stung the Marquis.
'Have a care! have a care!' he cried hotly. 'You go too far,
M. Berault.'
'De Berault, if you please,' I objected, eyeing him sternly. 'My
family has borne the DE as long as yours, M. de Pombal.'
He could not deny that, and he answered, 'As you please;' at the
same time restraining his friend by a gesture. 'But none the
less,' he continued, 'take my advice. The Cardinal has forbidden
duelling, and this time he means it! You have been in trouble
once and gone free. A second time it may fare worse with you.
Let this gentleman go, therefore, M. de Berault. Besides--why,
shame upon you, man!' he exclaimed hotly; 'he is but a lad!'
Two or three who stood behind me applauded that, But I turned and
they met my eye; and they were as mum as mice.
'His age is his own concern,' I said grimly. 'He was old enough
a while ago to insult me.'
'And I will prove my words!' the lad cried, exploding at last.
He had spirit enough, and the Marquis had had hard work to
restrain him so long. 'You do me no service, M. de Pombal,' he
continued, pettishly shaking off his friend's hand. 'By your
leave, this gentleman and I will settle this matter.'
'That is better,' I said, nodding drily, while the Marquis stood
aside, frowning and baffled. 'Permit me to lead the way.'
Zaton's eating-house stands scarcely a hundred paces from St
Jacques la Boucherie, and half the company went thither with us.
The evening was wet, the light in the streets was waning, the
streets themselves were dirty and slippery. There were few
passers in the Rue St Antoine; and our party, which earlier in
the day must have attracted notice and a crowd, crossed unmarked,
and entered without interruption the paved triangle which lies
immediately behind the church. I saw in the distance one of the
Cardinal's guard loitering in front of the scaffolding round the
new Hotel Richelieu; and the sight of the uniform gave me pause
for a moment. But it was too late to repent.
The Englishman began at once to strip off his clothes. I closed
mine to the throat, for the air was chilly. At that moment,
while we stood preparing, and most of the company seemed a little
inclined to stand off from me, I felt a hand on my arm, and
turning, saw the dwarfish tailor at whose house, in the Rue
Savonnerie, I lodged at the time. The fellow's presence was
unwelcome, to say the least of it; and though for want of better
company I had sometimes encouraged him to be free with me at
home, I took that to be no reason why I should be plagued with
him before gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping by a
frown to silence him.
He was not to be so easily put down, however, and perforce I had
to speak to him.
'Afterwards, afterwards,' I said hurriedly. 'I am engaged now.
'For God's sake, don't, sir!' the poor fool cried, clinging to
my sleeve. 'Don't do it! You will bring a curse on the house.
He is but a lad, and--'
'You, too!' I exclaimed,losing patience. 'Be silent, you scum!
What do you know about gentlemen's quarrels? Leave me; do you
hear?'
'But the Cardinal!' he cried in a quavering voice. 'The
Cardinal, M. de Berault! The last man you killed is not
forgotten yet. This time he will be sure to--'
'Leave me, do you hear?' I hissed. The fellow's impudence
passed all bounds. It was as bad as his croaking. 'Begone!' I
added. 'I suppose you are afraid that he will kill me, and you
will lose your money.'
Frison fell back at that almost as if I had struck him, and I
turned to my adversary, who had been awaiting my motions with
impatience. God knows he did look young as he stood with his
head bare and his fair hair drooping over his smooth woman's
forehead--a mere lad fresh from the college of Burgundy, if they
have such a thing in England. I felt a sudden chill as I looked
at him: a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What was it the
little tailor had said? That I should--but there, he did not
know. What did he know of such things? If I let this pass I
must kill a man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, and
starve.
'A thousand pardons,' I said gravely, as I drew and took my
place. 'A dun. I am sorry that the poor devil caught me so
inopportunely. Now however, I am at your service.'
He saluted and we crossed swords and began. But from the first I
had no doubt what the result would be. The slippery stones and
fading light gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage,
more than he deserved; but I had no sooner felt his blade than I
knew that he was no swordsman. Possibly he had taken half-a-
dozen lessons in rapier art, and practised what he learned with
an Englishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But that was all.
He made a few wild clumsy rushes, parrying widely. When I had
foiled these, the danger was over, and I held him at my mercy.
I played with him a little while, watching the sweat gather on
his brow and the shadow of the church tower fall deeper and
darker, like the shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of cruelty
--God knows I have never erred in that direction!--but because,
for the first time in my life, I felt a strange reluctance to
strike the blow. The curls clung to his forehead; his breath
came and went in gasps; I heard the men behind me and one or two
of them drop an oath; and then I slipped--slipped, and was down
in a moment on my right side, my elbow striking the pavement so
sharply that the arm grew numb to the wrist.
He held off. I heard a dozen voices cry, 'Now! now you have
him!' But he held off. He stood back and waited with his breast
heaving and his point lowered, until I had risen and stood again.
on my guard.
'Enough! enough!' a rough voice behind me cried. 'Don't hurt
the man after that.'
'On guard, sir!' I answered coldly--for he seemed to waver, and
be in doubt. 'It was an accident. It shall not avail you
again.'
Several voices cried 'Shame!' and one, 'You coward!' But the
Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He
took his place without a word. I read in his drawn white face
that he had made up his mind to the worst, and his courage so won
my admiration that I would gladly and thankfully have set one of
the lookers-on--any of the lookers-on--in his place; but that
could not be. So I thought of Zaton's closed to me, of Pombal's
insult, of the sneers and slights I had long kept at the sword's
point; and, pressing him suddenly in a heat of affected anger, I
thrust strongly over his guard, which had grown feeble, and ran
him through the chest.
When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones with his eyes half
shut, and his face glimmering white in the dusk--not that I saw
him thus long, for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a
twinkling--I felt an unwonted pang. It passed, however, in a
moment. For I found myself confronted by a ring of angry faces
--of men who, keeping at a distance, hissed and cursed and
threatened me, calling me Black Death and the like.
They were mostly canaille, who had gathered during the fight, and
had viewed all that passed from the farther side of the railings.
While some snarled and raged at me like wolves, calling me
'Butcher!' and 'Cut-throat!' or cried out that Berault was at
his trade again, others threatened me with the vengeance of the
Cardinal, flung the edict in my teeth, and said with glee that
the guard were coming--they would see me hanged yet.
'His blood is on your head!' one cried furiously. 'He will be
dead in an hour. And you will swing for him! Hurrah!'
'Begone,' I said.
'Ay, to Montfaucon,' he answered, mocking me.
'No; to your kennel!' I replied, with a look which sent him a
yard backwards, though the railings were between us. And I wiped
my blade carefully, standing a little apart. For--well, I could
understand it--it was one of those moments when a man is not
popular. Those who had come with me from the eating-house eyed
me askance, and turned their backs when I drew nearer; and those
who had joined us and obtained admission were scarcely more
polite.
But I was not to be outdone in SANG FROID. I cocked my hat, and
drawing my cloak over my shoulders, went out with a swagger which
drove the curs from the gate before I came within a dozen paces
of it. The rascals outside fell back as quickly, and in a moment
I was in the street. Another moment and I should have been clear
of the place and free to lie by for a while--when, without
warning, a scurry took place round me. The crowd fled every way
into the gloom, and in a hand-turn a dozen of the Cardinal's
guards closed round me.
I had some acquaintance with the officer in command, and he
saluted me civilly.
'This is a bad business, M. de Berault,' he said. 'The man is
dead they tell me.'
'Neither dying nor dead,' I answered lightly. 'If that be all
you may go home again.'
'With you,' he replied, with a grin, 'certainly. And as it
rains, the sooner the better. I must ask you for your sword, I
am afraid.'
'Take it,' I said, with the philosophy which never deserts me.
'But the man will not die.'
'I hope that may avail you,' he answered in a tone I did not
like. 'Left wheel, my friends! To the Chatelet! March!'
'There are worse places,' I said, and resigned myself to fate.
After all, I had been in a prison before, and learned that only
one jail lets no prisoner escape.
But when I found that my friend's orders were to hand me over to
the watch, and that I was to be confined like any common jail-
bird caught cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my
heart sank. If I could get speech with the Cardinal, all would
probably be well; but if I failed in this, or if the case came
before him in strange guise, or if he were in a hard mood
himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict said, death!
And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not put himself to much
trouble to hearten me. 'What! again M. de Berault?' he said,
raising his eyebrows as he received me at the gate, and
recognised me by the light of the brazier which his men were just
kindling outside. 'You are a very bold man, or a very foolhardy
one, to come here again. The old business, I suppose?'
'Yes, but he is not dead,' I answered coolly. 'He has a trifle
--a mere scratch. It was behind the church of St Jacques.'
'He looked dead enough, my friend,' the guardsman interposed. He
had not yet left us.
'Bah!' I answered scornfully. 'Have you ever known me make a
mistake When I kill a man I kill him. I put myself to pains, I
tell you, not to kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live.'
'I hope so,' the lieutenant said, with a dry smile. 'And you had
better hope so, too, M. de Berault, For if not--'
'Well?' I said, somewhat troubled. 'If not, what, my friend?'
'I fear he will be the last man you will fight,' he answered.
'And even if he lives, I would not be too sure, my friend. This
time the Cardinal is determined to put it down.'
'He and I are old friends,' I said confidently.
'So I have heard,' he anwered, with a short laugh. 'I think that
the same was said of Chalais. I do not remember that it saved
his head.'
This was not reassuring. But worse was to come. Early in the
morning orders were received that I should be treated with
especial strictness, and I was given the choice between irons and
one of the cells below the level. Choosing the latter, I was
left to reflect upon many things; among others, on the queer and
uncertain nature of the Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with
a man as a cat with a mouse; and on the ill effects which
sometimes attend a high chest-thrust however carefully delivered.
I only rescued myself at last from these and other unpleasant
reflections by obtaining the loan of a pair of dice; and the
light being just enough to enable me to reckon the throws, I
amused myself for hours by casting them on certain principles of
my own. But a long run again and again upset my calculations;
and at last brought me to the conclusion that a run of bad luck
may be so persistent as to see out the most sagacious player.
This was not a reflection very welcome to me at the moment.
Nevertheless, for three days it was all the company I had. At
the end of that time, the knave of a jailor who attended me, and
who had never grown tired of telling me, after the fashion of his
kind, that I should be hanged, came to me with a less assured
air.
'Perhaps you would like a little water?' he said civilly.
'Why, rascal?' I asked.
'To wash with,' he answered.
'I asked for some yesterday, and you would not bring it,' I
grumbled. 'However, better late than never. Bring it now. If I
must hang, I will hang like a gentleman. But depend upon it, the
Cardinal will not serve an old friend so scurvy a trick.'
'You are to go to him,' he announced, when he came back with the
water.
'What? To the Cardinal?' I cried.
'Yes,' he answered.
'Good!' I exclaimed; and in my joy and relief I sprang up at
once, and began to refresh my dress. 'So all this time I have
been doing him an injustice,' I continued. 'VIVE MONSEIGNEUR!
Long live the little Bishop of Luchon! I might have known it,
too.'
'Don't make too sure!' the man answered spitefully. Then he
went on, 'I have something else for you. A friend of yours left
it at the gate,' and he handed me a packet.
'Quite so!' I said, leading his rascally face aright. 'And you
kept it as long as you dared--as long as you thought I should
hang, you knave! Was not that so? But there, do not lie to me.
Tell me instead which of my friends left it.' For, to confess
the truth, I had not so many friends at this time and ten good
crowns--the packet contained no less a sum--argued a pretty
staunch friend, and one of whom a man might reasonably be proud.
The knave sniggered maliciously. 'A crooked dwarfish man left
it,' he said. 'I doubt I might call him a tailor and not be far
out.'
'Chut!' I answered--but I was a little out of countenance,
nevertheless. 'I understand. An honest fellow enough, and in
debt to me! I am glad he remembered. But when am I to go,
friend?'
'In an hour,' he answered sullenly. Doubtless he had looked to
get one of the crowns; but I was too old a hand for that. If I
came back I could buy his services; and if I did not I should
have wasted my money.
Nevertheless, a little later, when I found myself on my way to
the Hotel Richelieu under so close a guard that I could see
nothing in the street except the figures that immediately
surrounded me, I wished that I had given him the money. At such
times, when all hangs in the balance and the sky is overcast, the
mind runs on luck and old superstitions, and is prone to think a
crown given here may avail there--though THERE be a hundred
leagues away.
The Palais Richelieu was at this time in building, and we were
required to wait in a long, bare gallery, where the masons were
at work. I was kept a full hour here, pondering uncomfortably on
the strange whims and fancies of the great man who then ruled
France as the King's Lieutenant-General, with all the King's
powers, and whose life I had once been the means of saving by a
little timely information. On occasion he had done something to
wipe out the debt; and at other times he had permitted me to be
free with him, and so far we were not unknown to one another.
Nevertheless, when the doors were at last thrown open, and I was
led into his presence, my confidence underwent a shock. His cold
glance, that, roving over me, regarded me not as a man but an
item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes, chilled me to the
bone. The room was bare, the floor without carpet or covering.
Some of the woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces. But
the man--this man, needed no surroundings. His keen pale face,
his brilliant eyes, even his presence--though he was of no great
height, and began already to stoop at the shoulders--were enough
to awe the boldest. I recalled, as I looked at him, a hundred
tales of his iron will, his cold heart, his unerring craft. He
had humbled the King's brother, the splendid Duke of Orleans, in
the dust. He had curbed the Queen-mother. A dozen heads, the
noblest in France, had come to the block through him. Only two
years before he had quelled Rochelle; only a few months before he
had crushed the great insurrection in Languedoc: and though the
south, stripped of its old privileges, still seethed with
discontent, no one in this year 1630 dared lift a hand against
him--openly, at any rate. Under the surface a hundred plots, a
thousand intrigues, sought his life or his power; but these, I
suppose, are the hap of every great man.
No wonder, then, that the courage on which I plumed myself sank
low at sight of him; or that it was as much as I could do to
mingle with the humility of my salute some touch of the SANG
FROID of old acquaintanceship.
And perhaps that had had been better left out. For it seemed
that this man was without bowels. For a moment, while he stood
looking at me, and before he spoke to me, I gave myself up for
lost. There was a glint of cruel satisfaction in his eyes that
warned me, before he opened his mouth, what he was going to say
to me.
'I could not have made a better catch, M. de Berault,' he said,
smiling villainously, while he gently smoothed the fur of a cat
that had sprung on the table beside him. 'An old offender, and
an excellent example. I doubt it will not stop with you. But
later, we will make you the warrant for flying at higher game.'
'Monseigneur has handled a sword himself,' I blurted out. The
very room seemed to be growing darker, the air colder. I was
never nearer fear in my life.
'Yes?' he said, smiling delicately. 'And so--?'
'Will not be too hard on the failings of a poor gentleman.'
'He shall suffer no more than a rich one,' he replied suavely as
he stroked the cat. 'Enjoy that satisfaction, M. de Berault. Is
that all?'
'Once I was of service to your Eminence,' I said desperately.
'Payment has been made,' he answered, 'more than once. But for
that I should not have seen you.'
'The King's face!' I cried, snatching at the straw he seemed to
hold out.
He laughed cynically, smoothly. His thin face, his dark
moustache, and whitening hair, gave him an air of indescribable
keenness.
'I am not the King,' he said. 'Besides, I am told that you have
killed as many as six men in duels. You owe the King, therefore,
one life at least. You must pay it. There is no more to be
said, M. de Berault,' he continued coldly, turning away and
beginning to collect some papers. 'The law must take its
course.'
I thought that he was about to nod to the lieutenant to withdraw
me, and a chilling sweat broke out down my back. I saw the
scaffold, I felt the cords. A moment, and it would be too late!
'I have a favour to ask,' I stammered desperately, 'if your
Eminence will give me a moment alone.'
'To what end?' he answered, turning and eyeing me with cold
disfavour. 'I know you--your past--all. It can do no good, my
friend.'
'No harm!' I cried. 'And I am a dying man, Monseigneur!'
'That is true,' he said thoughtfully. Still he seemed to
hesitate; and my heart beat fast. At last he looked at the
lieutenant. 'You may leave us,' he said shortly. 'Now,' he
continued, when the officer had withdrawn and left us alone,
'what is it? Say what you have to say quickly. And, above all,
do not try to fool me, M. de Berault.'
But his piercing eyes so disconcerted me now that I had my
chance, and was alone with him, that I could not find a word to
say, and stood before him mute. I think this pleased him, for
his face relaxed.
'Well?' he said at last. 'Is that all?'
'The man is not dead,' I muttered.
He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
'What of that?' he said. 'That was not what you wanted to say
to me.'
'Once I saved your Eminence's life,' I faltered miserably.
'Admitted,' he answered, in his thin, incisive voice. 'You
mentioned the fact before. On the other hand, you have taken six
to my knowledge, M. de Berault. You have lived the life of a
bully, a common bravo, a gamester. You, a man of family! For
shame! Do you wonder that it has brought you to this! Yet on
that one point I am willing to hear more,' he added abruptly.
'I might save your Eminence's life again,' I cried. It was a
sudden inspiration.
'You know something?' he said quickly, fixing me with his eyes.
'But no,' he continued, shaking his head gently. 'Pshaw! The
trick is old. I have better spies than you, M. de Berault.'
'But no better sword,' I cried hoarsely. 'No, not in all your
guard!'
'That is true,' he said slowly. 'That is true.'
To my surprise, he spoke in a tone of consideration; and he
looked down at the floor. 'Let me think, my friend,' he
continued.
He walked two or three times up and down the room, while I stood
trembling. I confess it, trembling. The man whose pulses danger
has no power to quicken, is seldom proof against suspense; and
the sudden hope his words awakened in me so shook me that his
figure as he trod lightly to and fro with the cat rubbing against
his robe and turning time for time with him, wavered before my
eyes. I grasped the table to steady myself. I had not admitted
even in my own mind how darkly the shadow of Montfaucon and the
gallows had fallen across me.
I had leisure to recover myself, for it was some time before he
spoke. When he did, it was in a voice harsh, changed,
imperative. 'You have the reputation of a man faithful, at
least, to his employer,' he said. 'Do not answer me. I say it
is so. Well, I will trust you. I will give you one more chance
--though it is a desperate one. Woe to you if you fail me! Do
you know Cocheforet in Bearn? It is not far from Auch.'
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