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S >> S. R. Crockett >> The Black Douglas




The Marshal de Retz shut the window with a shrug of protest against
the vulgarity of prejudice. He did not notice four men in the garb of
pilgrims who stood in the dark of a doorway opposite.

"This is both unnecessary and excessively discomposing," he muttered;
"I fear Poitou has not been judicious enough in his selections."

He turned towards the private door, and as he did so Astarte the
she-wolf rose and silently followed him with her head drooped forward.
He went along a dark passage and pushed open a little iron door. A
bright light as of a furnace burnt up before him, and the heat was
overpowering as it rushed like a ruddy tide-race against his face.

"Well, Poitou, does it go better?" he said cheerfully, "or must we try
them of the other sex and somewhat younger, as I at first proposed?"

He let the door slip back, and the action of a powerful spring shut
out Astarte. Whereat she sat down on her haunches in the dark of the
passage, and showed her gleaming teeth in a grin, as, with cocked
ears, she listened to the sounds from within the secret laboratory of
the Marshal de Retz.




CHAPTER XLIII

MALISE FETCHES A CLOUT


The four men whom the Messire Gilles, by good fortune, failed to see
standing in the doorway opposite the Hotel de Pornic were attired in
the habit of pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella.
Upon their heads they wore broad corded hats of brown. Long brown
robes covered them from head to foot. Their heads were tonsured, and
as they went along they fumbled at their beads and gave their
benediction to the people that passed by, whether they returned them
an alms or not. This they did by spreading abroad the fingers of both
hands and inclining their heads, at the same time muttering to
themselves in a tongue which, if not Latin, was at least equally
unknown to the good folk of Paris.

"It is the house," said the tallest of the four, "stand well back
within the shade!"

"Nay, Sholto, what need?" grumbled another, a very thickset palmer he;
"if the maids be within, let us burst the gates, and go and take them
out!"

"Be silent, Malise," put in the third pilgrim, whose dress of richer
stuff than that of his companions, added to an air of natural command,
betrayed the man of superior rank, "remember, great jolterhead, that
we are not at the gates of Edinburgh with all the south country at our
backs."

The fourth, a slender youth and fresh of countenance, stood somewhat
behind the first three, without speaking, and wore an air of profound
meditation and abstraction.

It is not difficult to identify three out of the four. Sholto's quest
for his sweetheart was a thing fixed and settled. That his father and
his brother Laurence should accompany him was also to be expected. But
the other and more richly attired was somewhat less easy to be
certified. The Lord James of Douglas it was, who spoke French with the
idiomatic use and easy accentuation of a native, albeit of those
central provinces which had longest owned the sway of the King of
France. The brothers MacKim also spoke the language of the country
after a fashion. For many Frenchmen had come over to Galloway in the
trains of the first two Dukes of Touraine, so that the Gallic speech
was a common accomplishment among the youths who sighed to adventure
where so many poor Scots had won fortune, in the armies of the Kings
of France.

Indeed, throughout the centuries Paris cannot be other than Paris. And
Paris was more than ever Paris in the reign of Charles the Seventh.
Her populace, gay, fickle, brave, had just cast off the yoke of the
English, and were now venting their freedom from stern Saxon policing
according to their own fashion. Not the King of France, but the Lord
of Misrule held the sceptre in the capital.

It was not long therefore before a band of rufflers swung round a
corner arm-in-arm, taking the whole breadth of the narrow causeway
with them as they came. It chanced that their leader espied the four
Scots standing in the wide doorway of the house opposite the Hotel de
Pornic.

"Hey, game lads," he cried, in that roistering shriek which then
passed for dashing hardihood among the youth of Paris, "here be some
holy men, pilgrims to the shrine of Saint Denis, I warrant. I, too, am
a clerk of a sort, for Henriet tonsured me on Wednesday sennight. Let
us see if these men of good works carry any of the deceitful vanities
of earth about with them in their purses. Sometimes such are not ill
lined!"

The youths accepted the proposal of their leader with alacrity.

"Let us have the blessing of the holy palmers," they cried, "and eke
the contents of their pockets!"

So with a gay shout, and in an evil hour for themselves, they bore
down upon the four Scots.

"Good four evangelists," cried the youth who had spoken first--a tall,
ill-favoured, and sallow young man in a cloak of blue lined with
scarlet, swaggering it with long strides before the others, "tell us
which of you four is Messire Matthew. For, being a tax-gatherer, he
will assuredly have money of his own, and besides, since the sad death
of your worthy friend Judas, he must have succeeded him as your
treasurer."

"This is the keeper of our humble store, noble sir," answered the Lord
James Douglas, quietly, indicating the giant Malise with his left
hand, "but spare him and us, I pray you courteously!"

"Ha, so," mocked the tall youth, turning to Malise, "then the
gentleman of the receipt of custom hath grown strangely about the
chest since he went a-wandering from Galilee!"

And he reached forward his hand to pull away the cloak which hung
round the great frame of the master armourer.

Malise MacKim understood nothing of his words or of his intent, but
without looking at his tormentor or any of the company, he asked of
James Douglas, in a voice like the first distant mutterings of a
thunder-storm, "Shall I clout him?"

"Nay, be patient, Malise, I bid you. This is an ill town in which to
get rid of a quarrel once begun. Be patient!" commanded James Douglas
under his breath.

"We are clerks ourselves," the swarthy youth went on, "and we have
come to the conclusion that such holy palmers as you be, men from
Burgundy or the Midi, as I guess by your speech, Spaniards by your
cloaks and this good tax-gatherer's beard, ought long ago to have
taken the vows of poverty. If not, you shall take them now. For, most
worthy evangelistic four, be it known unto you that I am Saint Peter
and can loose or bind. So turn out your money-bags. Draw your blades,
limber lads!"

Whereupon his companions with one accord drew their swords and
advanced upon the Scots. These stood still without moving as if they
had been taken wholly unarmed.

"Shall I clout them now?" rumbled Malise the second time, with an
anxious desire in his voice.

"Bide a wee yet," whispered the Lord James; "we will try the soft
answer once more, and if that fail, why then, old Samson, you may
clout your fill."

"_His_ fill!" corrected Malise, grimly.

"Your pardon, good gentlemen," said James of Douglas aloud to the
spokesman, "we are poor men and travel with nothing but the merest
necessities--of which surely you would not rob us."

"Nay, holy St. Luke," mocked the swarthy one, "not rob. That is an
evil word--rather we would relieve you of temptation for your own
souls' good. You are come for your sins to Paris. You know that the
love of money is the root of all evil. So in giving to us who are
clerks of Paris you will not lose your ducats, but only contribute of
your abundance to Holy Mother Church. I am a clerk, see--I do not
deceive you! I will both shrive and absolve you in return for the
filthy lucre!"

And, commanding one of his rabble to hold a torch close to his head,
he uncovered and showed a tonsured crown.

"And if we refuse?" said Lord James, quietly.

"Then, good Doctor Luke," answered the youth, "we are ten to four--and
it would be our sad duty to send you all to heaven and then ease your
pockets, lest, being dead, some unsanctified passer-by might be
tempted to steal your money."

"Surely I may clout him now?" came again like the nearer growl of a
lion from Malise the smith.

Seeing the four men apparently intimidated and without means of
defence, the ten youths advanced boldly, some with swords in their
right hands and torches in their left, the rest with swords and
daggers both. The Scots stood silent and firm. Not a weapon showed
from beneath a cloak.

"Down on your knees!" cried the leader of the young roisterers, and
with his left hand he thrust a blazing torch into the grey beard of
Malise.

There was a quick snort of anger. Then, with a burst of relief and
pleasure, came the words, "By God, I'll clout him now!" The sound of a
mighty buffet succeeded, something cracked like a broken egg, and the
clever-tongued young clerk went down on the paving-stones with a
clatter, as his torch extinguished itself in the gutter and his sword
flew ringing across the street.

"Come on, lads--they have struck the first blow. We are safe from the
law. Kill them every one!" cried his companions, advancing to the
attack with a confidence born of numbers and the consciousness of
fighting on their own ground.

But ere they reached the four men who had waited so quietly, the Scots
had gathered their cloaks about their left arms in the fashion of
shields, and a blade, long and stout, gleamed in every right hand.
Still no armour was to be seen, and, though somewhat disconcerted, the
assailants were by no means dismayed.

"Come on--let us revenge De Sille!" they cried.

"Lord, Lord, this is gaun to be a sair waste o' guid steel," grumbled
Malise; "would that I had in my fist a stieve oaken staff out of
Halmyre wood. Then I could crack their puir bit windlestaes o' swords,
without doing them muckle hurt! Laddies, laddies, be warned and gang
decently hame to your mithers before a worse thing befall. James, ye
hae their ill-contrived lingo, tell them to gang awa' peaceably to
their naked beds!"

For, having vented his anger in the first buffet, Malise was now
somewhat remorseful. There was no honour in such fighting. But all
unwarned the youthful roisterers of Paris advanced. This was a nightly
business with them, and indeed on such street robberies of strangers
and shopkeepers the means of continuing their carousings depended.

It chanced that at the first brunt of the attack Sholto, who was at
the other end of the line from his father, had to meet three opponents
at once. He kept them at bay for a minute by the quickness of his
defence, but being compelled to give back he was parrying a couple of
their blades in front, when the third got in a thrust beneath his arm.
It was as if the hostile sword had stricken a stone wall. The flimsy
and treacherous blade went to flinders, and the would-be robber was
left staring at the guard suddenly grown light in his hand.

With a quick backward step, Sholto slashed his last assailant across
the upper arm, effectually disabling him. Then, catching his heel in a
rut, he fell backward, and it would have gone ill with him but for the
action of his father. The brawny one was profoundly disgusted at
having to waste his strength and science upon such a rabble, and now,
at the moment of his son's fall, he suddenly dropped his sword and
seized a couple of torches which had fallen upon the pavement. With
these primitive weapons he fell like a whirlwind upon the foe, taking
them unexpectedly in flank. A sweep of his mighty arms right and left
sent two of the assailants down, one with the whole side of his face
scarified from brow to jaw, and the other with his mouth at once
widened by the blow and hermetically closed by the blazing tar.

Next, Sholto's pair of assailants received each a mighty buffet and
went down with cracked sconces. The rest, seeing this revolving and
decimating fire-mill rushing upon them as Malise waved the torches
round his head, turned tail and fled incontinently into the narrow
alleys which radiated in all directions from the Hotel de Pornic.




CHAPTER XLIV

LAURENCE TAKES NEW SERVICE


"Look to them well, Malise," said the Lord James; "'twas you who did
the skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us if
any of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have their
deaths on my conscience if I can avoid it."

First picking up and sheathing his sword, then bidding Sholto hold a
torch, Malise turned the youths over on their backs. Four of them
grunted and complained of the flare of the light in their eyes, like
men 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 some
o' 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 been
spokesman and who had fallen first, was more seriously injured. He had
worn a thin steel cap on his head, which had been cracked by the
buffet he had received from the mighty fist of the master armourer.
The broken pieces had made a wound in the skull, from which blood
flowed freely. And in the uncertain light of the torch Malise could
not make any prolonged examination.

"Let us tak' the callant up to the tap o' the hoose," he said at
last; "we can put him in the far ben garret till we see if he is gaun
to turn up his braw silver-taed shoon."

Without waiting for any permission or dissent, the smith of Carlinwark
tucked his late opponent under his arm as easily as an ordinary man
might carry a puppy. Then, sheathing their swords, the other three
Scots made haste to leave the place, for the gleaming of lanthorns
could already be seen down the street, which might either mark the
advent of the city watch or the return of the enemy with
reinforcements.

It was to a towering house with barred windows and great doors that
the four Scots retreated. Entering cautiously by a side portal, Malise
led the way with his burden. This mansion had been the town residence
of the first Duke of Touraine, Archibald the Tineman. It had been
occupied by the English for military purposes during their tenancy of
the city, and now that they were gone, it had escaped by its very
dilapidation the fate of the other possessions of the house of Douglas
in France.

James Douglas had obtained the keys from Gervais Bonpoint, the trusty
agent of the Avondales in Paris, who also attended to the foreign
concerns of most others of the Scottish nobility. So the four men had
taken possession, none saying them nay, and, indeed, in the disordered
state of the government, but few being aware of their presence.

Upon an old bedstead hastily covered with plaids, Malise proceeded to
make his prisoner comfortable. Then, having washed the wound and
carefully examined it by candlelight, he pronounced his verdict:

"The young cheat-the-wuddie will do yet, and live to swing by the lang
cord about his craig!"

Which, when interpreted in the vulgar, conveyed at once an expectation
of a life to be presently prolonged to the swarthy de Sille, but after
a time to be cut suddenly short by the hangman.

Every day James Douglas and Sholto haunted the precincts of the Hotel
de Pornic and made certain that its terrible master had not departed.
Malise wished to leave Paris and proceed at once to the De
Retz country, there to attempt in succession the marshal's great
castles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, and Champtoce, in some one of which
he was sure that the stolen maids must be immured.

But James Douglas and Sholto earnestly dissuaded him from the
adventure. How did they know (they reminded him) in which to look?
They were all fortresses of large extent, well garrisoned, and it was
as likely as not that they might spend their whole time fruitlessly
upon one, without gaining either knowledge or advantage.

Besides, they argued it was not likely that any harm would befall the
maids so long as their captor remained in Paris--that is, none which
had not already overtaken them on their journey as prisoners on board
the marshal's ships.

So the Hotel de Pornic and its inhabitants remained under the strict
espionage of Sholto and Lord James, while up in the garret in the Rue
des Ursulines Laurence nursed his brother clerk and Malise sat
gloomily polishing and repolishing the weapons and secret armour of
the party.

It was the evening of the third day before the "clout" showed signs
of healing. Its recipient had been conscious on the second day, but,
finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had been
naturally enough inclined to be a little sulky and suspicious. But the
bright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomatic
but ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As also
the fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play upon
the viol with surprising skill for one so young.

The prisoner never tired of watching the sunny curls upon the brow of
Laurence MacKim, as he wandered about trying the benches, the chairs,
and even the floor in a hundred attitudes in search of a comfortable
position.

"Ah," the sallow youth said at last, one afternoon as he lay on his
pallet, "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 he
be a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eat
and drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of so
profitless a servant as yourself?"

"I am the poor gentleman Gilles de Sille of the household of the
Marshal de Retz!" answered the swarthy youth, readily.

"De Silly indeed to bide with such a master!" quoth Laurence, with his
usual prompt heedlessness of consequences.

The sallow youth with his bandaged head did not understand the poor
jest, but, taking offence at the tone, he instantly reared himself on
his elbow and darted a look at Laurence from under brows so lowering
and searching that Laurence fell back in mock terror.

"Nay," he cried, shaking at the knees and letting his hands swing
ludicrously by his sides, "do not affright a poor clerk! If you look
at me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall to
protect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on the
other side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service again
with the Marshal de Retz."

"What know you of my master?" reiterated Gilles de Sille, glowering at
his mercurial jailer, without heeding his persiflage.

"Why, nothing at all," said Laurence, truthfully, "except that while
we stood listening to the singing of the choir within his hotel, a
poor woman came crying for her son, whom (so she declared) the marshal
had kidnapped. Whereat came forth the guard from within, and thrust
her away. Then arrived you and your varlets and got your heads broken
for your impudence. That is all I know or want to know of your
master."

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 most
lavish and generous master alive. He thinks no more of giving a
handful of gold pieces to a youth with whom he is taken than of
throwing a crust to a beggar at his gate. He owns the finest province
in 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 the
private chapel of the Holy Father himself. When he goes in procession
he 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 can
see at a glance. I warrant you, Master Laurence, if you will come with
me, the marshal will make your fortune."

"Did the other young fellow make his fortune?" said Laurence. Gilles
de 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's
window the night before yestreen'."

The lank swarthy youth ground his teeth.

"'Tis ill speaking against dignities," he replied presently, with a
certain sullen pride. "I daresay the young fellow took service with
the marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, or
mayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at some
lattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of his
mother 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 the
catgut in his mouth as he spoke.

"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sille, eagerly, the
flicker 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, he
never 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 and
finished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to his
satisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think
of it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and of
singing psalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, in
this city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I am
not the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as not
he 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 other
accomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, was
that of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as we
have seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting out
from 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 was
approaching the garret.

"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall not
mention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put a
bandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."

"Why, done with you--after all you are a right gamesome cock, my
Irelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better than
Laurence's promise to accompany him.

Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself and
locking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, where
he laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handled
the 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 ofttimes
reminded me. But I will show you a shift worth two of watching outside
the door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will go
where the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the time
comes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up my
mind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or the
Fair Maid of Galloway herself."

Thus headlong Laurence communed with himself, not knowing what he said
nor to what terrible adventure he was committing himself.

But Gilles de Sille of the house of the Marshal de Retz, being left to
himself in the half darkness of the garret, took up the viol and sang
a curious air like that with which the charmer wiles his snakes to
him, and at the end of every verse, he also laughed low to himself.




CHAPTER XLV

THE BOASTING OF GILLES DE SILLE


But, as fate would have it, it was not in the Hotel de Pornic nor yet
in the city of Paris that Laurence O'Halloran was destined to enter
the service of the most mighty Marshal de Retz.

Not till three days after his converse with the prisoner did Laurence
find an opportunity of escaping from the house in the street of the
Ursulines. Sholto and his father meantime kept their watch upon the
mansion of the enemy, turn and turn about; but without discovering
anything pertinent to their purpose, or giving Laurence a chance to
get clear off with Gilles de Sille. The Lord James had also frequently
adventured forth, as he declared, in order to spy out the land, though
it is somewhat sad to relate that this espionage conducted itself in
regions which gave more opportunities for investigating the peculiar
delights of Paris than of discovering the whereabouts of Maud Lindesay
and his cousin, the Fair Maid of Galloway.

The head of Gilles de Sille was still swathed in bandages when, with
an additional swaddling of disguise across his eyes, he and Laurence,
that truant scion of the house of O'Halloran, stole out into the
night. A frosty chill had descended with the darkness, and a pale,
dank mist from the marshes of the Seine made the pair shiver as arm in
arm they ventured carefully forth.

Laurence was doing a foolish, even a wicked, thing in thus, without
warning, deserting his companions. But he was just at the age when it
is the habit of youth to deceive themselves with the thought that a
shred of good intent covers a world of heedless folly.

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