CHAPTER LI
THE MARSHAL'S CHAMBER
There came a low voice in Laurence MacKim's ear, chill and sinister:"You do well to look out upon the fair world. None knoweth when we mayhave to leave it. Yonder is a star. Look well at it. They say God madeit. Perhaps He takes more interest in it than in the concerns of thisother world He hath made."
The son of Malise MacKim gripped himself, as it were, with both hands,and turned a face pale as marble to look into the grim countenancewhich hid the soul of the Lord of Machecoul.
Gilles de Retz appeared to peruse each feature of the boy's person asif he read in a book. Yet even as Laurence gave back glance forglance, and with the memory of what he had seen yet fresh upon him, astrange courage began to glow in the heart of the young Scot. Therecame a kind of contempt, too, into his breast, as though he had it inhim to be a man in despite of the devil and all his works.
The marshal continued his scrutiny, and Laurence returned his gazewith interest.
"Well, boy," said the marshal, smiling as if not ill pleased at hisboldness, "what do you think of me?"
"I think, sir," said Laurence, simply, "that you have grown oldersince I saw you in the lists at Thrieve."
It seemed to Laurence that the words were given him. And all the timehe was saying to himself: "Now I have done it. For this he will surelyput me to death. He cannot help himself. Why did I not stick to itthat I was an Irelander?"
But, somehow, the answer seemed like an arrow from a bow shot at aventure, entering in between the joints of the marshal's armour.
"Do you think so?" he said, with some startled anxiety, yet withoutsurprise; "older than at Thrieve? I do not believe it. It isimpossible. Why, I grow younger and younger every day. It has beenpromised me that I should."
And setting his elbow on the sill of the window, Gilles de Retz lookedthoughtfully out upon the cool dusk of the rose garden. Then all atonce it came to him what was implied in that unlucky speech ofLaurence's. The grim intensity returned to his eyes as he erectedhimself and bent his brows, white with premature age, upon the boy,who confronted him with the fearlessness born of youth and ignorance.
"Ah," he said, "this is interesting; you have changed your nation. Youwere an Irishman to De Sille in Paris, to the clerk Henriet, and tothe choir at Machecoul. Yet to me you admit in the very first wordsyou speak that you are a Scot and saw me at the Castle of Thrieve."
Even yet the old Laurence might have turned the corner. He had, as weknow, graduated as a liar ready and expert. He had daily practised hisart upon the Abbot. He had even, though more rarely, succeeded withhis father. But now in the day of his necessity the power and wit haddeparted from him.
To the lord of the Castle of Machecoul Laurence simply could not lie.Ringed as he was by evil, his spirit became strong for good, and hetestified like one in the place of final judgment, when the earthlylendings of word and phrase and covering excuse must all be cast asideand the soul stand forth naked and nakedly answer that which isrequired.
"I am a Scot," said Laurence, briefly, and without explanation.
"Come with me into my chamber," said the marshal, and turned toprecede him thither.
And without word of complaint or backward glance, the lad followed thegreat lord to the chamber, into which so many had gone before him ofthe young and beautiful of the earth, and whence so few had come outalive.
As he passed the threshold, Laurence put into his mouth the elasticpellet which had been given him by Blaise Renouf, the choir-master'sson.
The marshal threw himself upon a chair, reclining with a wearied airupon the hands which were clasped behind his head. In the action ofthrowing himself back one could see that Gilles de Retz was a youngand not an old man, though ordinarily his vitality had been worn tothe quick, and both in appearance and movement he was alreadyprematurely aged.
"What is your name?"
The question came with military directness from the lips of themarshal of France.
"Laurence MacKim," said the lad, with equal directness.
"For what purpose did you come to the Castle of Machecoul?"
"I came," said Laurence, coolly, "to take service with you, my lord.And because I was tired of monk rule, and getting only the husks oflife, tired too of sitting dumb and watching others eat the kernel."
"Ha!" cried Gilles de Retz, "I am with you there. There is, after all,some harmony between our immortal parts. For my part, I would have allof life,--husk, kernel, stalk,--aye, and the root that grows amid thedung."
He paused a moment, looking at Laurence with the air of a connoisseur.
"Come hither, lad," he said, with a soft and friendly accent; "sit onthis seat with your back to the window. Turn your head so that thelamp shines aright upon your face. You are not so handsome as wasreported, but that there is something wondrously taking about yourcountenance, I do admit. There--sit so, and fear nothing."
Laurence sat down with the bad grace of a manly youth who is admiredfor what he privately despises, and wishes himself well quit of. But,notwithstanding this, there was something so insinuating and pleasantabout the marshal's manner that the lad almost thought he must havedreamed the incident of the burned door and the sacrifice upon theiron altar.
"You came hither to search for Margaret of Douglas," said the marshal,suddenly bending forward as if to take him by surprise.
Laurence, wholly taken aback, answered neither yea nor nay, but heldhis peace.
Then Gilles de Retz nodded sagely, with a quiet satisfaction in hisown prevision, which to one less bold and reckless than the youngclerk of Dulce Cor would have proved disconcerting. Then he propoundedhis next question:
"How many came hither with you?"
"One," said Laurence, promptly; "I came here alone with your servantDe Sille."
The marshal smiled.
"Good--we will try some other method with you," he said; "but beadvised and speak. None hath ever hidden aught from Gilles de Retz."
"Then, my lord," said Laurence, "there is the less reason for you toput me to the question."
"I can expound dark speeches," said the marshal, "and I also know myway through the subtleties of lying tongues. Hope not to lie to me.How many were they that came to France with you?"
"I will not tell you," said the son of Malise.
The marshal smiled again and nodded his head repeatedly with a certaingustful appreciation.
"You would make a good soldier. It is a pity that I have gone out ofthe business. Yet I have only (as it were) descended from wholesale toparticular, from the gross to the detail."
Laurence, who felt that the true policy was to be sparing of hiswords, made no answer.
"You say that you are a clerk. Can you read Latin?"
"Yes," said Laurence, "and write it too."
"Read this, then," said the marshal, and handed him a book.
Laurence had been well instructed in the humanities by Father Colin ofSaint Michael's Kirk by the side of Dee water, and he read the words,which record the cruelties of the Emperor Caligula with exactness anddecorum.
"You read not ill," said his auditor; "you have been well taught,though you have a vile foreign accent and know not the shades ofmeaning that lie in the allusions.
"You say that you came to Machecoul with desire to serve me," themarshal continued after a pause for thought. "In what manner did youthink you could serve, and why went you not into the house of someother lord?"
"As to service," said Laurence, "I came because I was invited by yourhenchman de Sille. And as to what I can do, I profess that I can sing,having been well taught by a master, the best in my country. I canplay upon the viol and eke upon the organ. I am fairly good at fence,and excellent as any at singlestick. I can faithfully carry a messageand loyally serve those who trust me. I would have some money tospend, which I have never had. I wish to live a life worth living,wherein is pleasure and pain, the lack of sameness, and the joy ofthings new. And if that may not be--why, I am ready to die, that I ma
ymake proof whether there be anything better beyond."
"A most philosophic creed," cried the marshal. "Well, there is onething in which I can prove, if indeed you lie not. Sing!"
Then Laurence stood up and sang, even as the choir had done, thelamentation of Rachel according to the setting of the Roman precentor.
"_A voice was heard in Ramah!_"
And as he sang, the Lord of Retz took up the strain, and, with trueaccord and feeling, accompanied him to the end.
THE PRISONERS OF THE WHITE TOWER.]
"Brava!" cried Gilles de Retz when Laurence had finished; "that istruly well sung indeed! You shall sing it alone in my chapel nextfeast day of the Holy Innocents."
He paused as if to consider his words.
"And now for this time go. But remember that this Castle of Machecoulis straiter than any prison cell, and better guarded than a fortress.It is surrounded with constant watchers, secret, invisible,implacable. Whoso tries to escape, dies. You are a bold lad, and, as Ithink, fear not much death for yourself. But come hither, and I willshow you something which will chain you here."
With a kind of solicitous familiarity the Marshal de Retz took the ladby the arm and drew him to another window on the further side of thekeep.
"Look forth and tell me what you see," he said.
Laurence set his head out of the window. He looked upon an intricatemass of building, composing the western wing of the castle, and it wassome moments before he could distinguish what the Sieur de Retz wishedhim to see. Then, as his eyes took in the details, he saw on the flatroof of a square tower beneath him two maidens seated, and when helooked closer--lo! they were Margaret Douglas and, beside her, hisbrother's sweetheart Maud Lindesay. These two were sitting hand inhand, as was their wont, and the head of the child was bowed almost toher friend's knee. Maud's arm was about Margaret's neck, and herfingers caressed the childish tangle of hair. Presently the elderlifted the younger upon her knee and hushed her like a mother whoputs a tired child to sleep.
Immediately behind this group, in the shadow of a buttress, Laurencesaw a tall man, masked, clad in a black suit, and with a drawn swordin his hand.
The marshal looked out over the lad's shoulder.
"The day you are missed from the Castle of Machecoul, or the day thatthe rest of your company arrives here, that sword shall fall, but in amore terrible fashion than I can tell you! That sentinel can neitherhear nor speak, but he has his orders and will obey them. I bid yougood night. Go to your singing in the choir. It is time for thechanting of vespers in the chapel of the Holy Innocents."