CHAPTER XLIV
LAURENCE TAKES NEW SERVICE
"Look to them well, Malise," said the Lord James; "'twas you who didthe skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us ifany of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have theirdeaths on my conscience if I can avoid it."
First picking up and sheathing his sword, then bidding Sholto hold atorch, Malise turned the youths over on their backs. Four of themgrunted and complained of the flare of the light in their eyes, likemen imperfectly roused from sleep.
"Thae loons will be round in half an hour," said Malise, confidently."But they will hae richt sair heads the morn, I'se warrant, and someo' them may be marked aboot the chafts for a Sabbath or twa!"
But the swarthy youth whom the others called De Sille, he who had beenspokesman and who had fallen first, was more seriously injured. He hadworn a thin steel cap on his head, which had been cracked by thebuffet he had received from the mighty fist of the master armourer.The broken pieces had made a wound in the skull, from which bloodflowed freely. And in the uncertain light of the torch Malise couldnot make any prolonged examination.
"Let us tak' the callant up to the tap o' the hoose," he said atlast; "we can put him in the far ben garret till we see if he is gaunto turn up his braw silver-taed shoon."
Without waiting for any permission or dissent, the smith of Carlinwarktucked his late opponent under his arm as easily as an ordinary manmight carry a puppy. Then, sheathing their swords, the other threeScots made haste to leave the place, for the gleaming of lanthornscould already be seen down the street, which might either mark theadvent of the city watch or the return of the enemy withreinforcements.
It was to a towering house with barred windows and great doors thatthe four Scots retreated. Entering cautiously by a side portal, Maliseled the way with his burden. This mansion had been the town residenceof the first Duke of Touraine, Archibald the Tineman. It had beenoccupied by the English for military purposes during their tenancy ofthe city, and now that they were gone, it had escaped by its verydilapidation the fate of the other possessions of the house of Douglasin France.
James Douglas had obtained the keys from Gervais Bonpoint, the trustyagent of the Avondales in Paris, who also attended to the foreignconcerns of most others of the Scottish nobility. So the four men hadtaken possession, none saying them nay, and, indeed, in the disorderedstate of the government, but few being aware of their presence.
Upon an old bedstead hastily covered with plaids, Malise proceeded tomake his prisoner comfortable. Then, having washed the wound andcarefully examined it by candlelight, he pronounced his verdict:
"The young cheat-the-wuddie will do yet, and live to swing by the langcord about his craig!"
Which, when interpreted in the vulgar, conveyed at once an expectationof a life to be presently prolonged to the swarthy de Sille, but aftera time to be cut suddenly short by the hangman.
Every day James Douglas and Sholto haunted the precincts of the Hotelde Pornic and made certain that its terrible master had not departed.Malise wished to leave Paris and proceed at once to the DeRetz country, there to attempt in succession the marshal's greatcastles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, and Champtoce, in some one of whichhe was sure that the stolen maids must be immured.
But James Douglas and Sholto earnestly dissuaded him from theadventure. How did they know (they reminded him) in which to look?They were all fortresses of large extent, well garrisoned, and it wasas likely as not that they might spend their whole time fruitlesslyupon one, without gaining either knowledge or advantage.
Besides, they argued it was not likely that any harm would befall themaids so long as their captor remained in Paris--that is, none whichhad not already overtaken them on their journey as prisoners on boardthe marshal's ships.
So the Hotel de Pornic and its inhabitants remained under the strictespionage of Sholto and Lord James, while up in the garret in the Ruedes Ursulines Laurence nursed his brother clerk and Malise satgloomily polishing and repolishing the weapons and secret armour ofthe party.
It was the evening of the third day before the "clout" showed signsof healing. Its recipient had been conscious on the second day, but,finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had beennaturally enough inclined to be a little sulky and suspicious. But thebright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomaticbut ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As alsothe fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play uponthe viol with surprising skill for one so young.
The prisoner never tired of watching the sunny curls upon the brow ofLaurence MacKim, as he wandered about trying the benches, the chairs,and even the floor in a hundred attitudes in search of a comfortableposition.
"Ah," the sallow youth said at last, one afternoon as he lay on hispallet, "you should be one of the choristers of my master's chapel.You can sing like an angel!"
"Well," laughed Laurence in reply, "I would be indeed content, if hebe a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eatand drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of soprofitless a servant as yourself?"
"I am the poor gentleman Gilles de Sille of the household of theMarshal de Retz!" answered the swarthy youth, readily.
"De Silly indeed to bide with such a master!" quoth Laurence, with hisusual prompt heedlessness of consequences.
The sallow youth with his bandaged head did not understand the poorjest, but, taking offence at the tone, he instantly reared himself onhis elbow and darted a look at Laurence from under brows so loweringand searching that Laurence fell back in mock terror.
"Nay," he cried, shaking at the knees and letting his hands swingludicrously by his sides, "do not affright a poor clerk! If you lookat me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall toprotect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on theother side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service againwith the Marshal de Retz."
"What know you of my master?" reiterated Gilles de Sille, glowering athis mercurial jailer, without heeding his persiflage.
"Why, nothing at all," said Laurence, truthfully, "except that whilewe stood listening to the singing of the choir within his hotel, apoor woman came crying for her son, whom (so she declared) the marshalhad kidnapped. Whereat came forth the guard from within, and thrusther away. Then arrived you and your varlets and got your heads brokenfor your impudence. That is all I know or want to know of yourmaster."
Gilles de Sille lay back on his pallet with a sigh, still, however,continuing to watch the lad's countenance.
"You should indeed take service with the marshal. He is the mostlavish and generous master alive. He thinks no more of giving ahandful of gold pieces to a youth with whom he is taken than ofthrowing a crust to a beggar at his gate. He owns the finest provincein all the west from side to side. He has castles well nigh a dozen,finer and stronger than any in France. He has a college of priests,and the service at his oratory is more nobly intoned than that in theprivate chapel of the Holy Father himself. When he goes in processionhe has a thurifer carried before him by the Pope's special permission.And I tell you, you are just the lad to take his fancy. That I cansee at a glance. I warrant you, Master Laurence, if you will come withme, the marshal will make your fortune."
"Did the other young fellow make his fortune?" said Laurence. Gillesde Sille glared as if he could have slain him.
"What other?" he growled, truculently.
"Why, the son of the poor woman who cried beneath your kind master'swindow the night before yestreen'."
The lank swarthy youth ground his teeth.
"'Tis ill speaking against dignities," he replied presently, with acertain sullen pride. "I daresay the young fellow took service withthe marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, ormayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at somelattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of hismother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!"
"Your master loves the society of the young?" queried Laurence,mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of thecatgut in his mouth as he spoke.
"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sille, eagerly, theflicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp."Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, henever leaves it for any other, not even the King's!"
Which in its way was a true enough statement.
"Well," quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string andfinished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to hissatisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may thinkof it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and ofsinging psalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, inthis city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I amnot the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as nothe marches me to the bilboes!"
"Of what nativity are you?" asked de Sille.
"Och, I'm all of a rank Irelander, and my name is Laurence O'Halloran,at your service," quoth the rogue, without a blush. For among otheraccomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, wasthat of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as wehave seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting outfrom the tourneying field at Glenlochar on his way to holy orders.
"Then you will come with me to-morrow?" said Gilles, smiling.
Laurence listened to make sure that neither his father nor Sholto wasapproaching the garret.
"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall notmention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put abandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."
"Why, done with you--after all you are a right gamesome cock, myIrelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better thanLaurence's promise to accompany him.
Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself andlocking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, wherehe laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handledthe saucepans.
"Aha, Master Sholto, you are the captain of the guard and a knight,forsooth, and I am but poor clerk Laurence--as you have ofttimesreminded me. But I will show you a shift worth two of watching outsidethe door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will gowhere the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the timecomes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up mymind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or theFair Maid of Galloway herself."
Thus headlong Laurence communed with himself, not knowing what he saidnor to what terrible adventure he was committing himself.
But Gilles de Sille of the house of the Marshal de Retz, being left tohimself in the half darkness of the garret, took up the viol and sanga curious air like that with which the charmer wiles his snakes tohim, and at the end of every verse, he also laughed low to himself.