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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




She shuddered as she spoke with a strong revulsion of feeling.

"Therefore, be careful with a great carefulness. Give up all thought
of rescuing them directly. Remember what you have been able to
accomplish, and that your slightest actions will bring upon those you
love a fate of which you little dream."

"After what we remember of Crichton Castle, how can we trust you,
lady?" said Malise, sternly. "Do you now speak the truth with your
mouth?"

"You have indeed small cause to think so," she answered without taking
offence. "Yet, having no choice, you must e'en trust me."

She turned sharply upon Sholto with a strip of paper in her
outstretched hand.

"I think, young sir, that you have some reason to know from whom that
comes."

Sholto grasped at the writing with a new and wonderful hope in his
heart. He knew instinctively before he touched it that none but Maud
Lindesay could have written that script--small, clear, and distinct as
a motto cut on a gem.

"_To our friends in France and Scotland,_" so it ran. "_We are still
safe this eve of the Blessed Saint Michael. Trust her who brings this
letter. She is our saviour and our only hope in a dark and evil place.
She is sorry for that which by her aid hath been done. As you hope for
forgiveness, forgive her. And for God's dear sake, do immediately the
thing she bids you. This comes from Margaret de Douglas and Maud
Lindesay. It is written by the hand of M. L._"

The wax at the bottom was sealed in double with the boar's head of
Lindesay and the heart of Margaret of Douglas.

Sholto, having read the missive silently, passed it to the Lord James
that he might prove the seals, for it was his only learning to be
skilled in heraldry.

"It is true," he said; "I myself gave the little maid that ring. See,
it hath a piece broken from the peak of the device."

"My lady," said Sholto, "that which you bring is more than enough. We
kiss your hand and we will sacredly do all your bidding, were it unto
the death or the trial by fire."

Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, the
Lord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla de
Thouars. But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled it
upon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly as
upon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.

"I thank you for your overmuch courtesy," the girl said, casting her
eyes on the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modest
maid; "I thank you, indeed. You do me honour far above my desert.
Still, after all, we work for one end. You have, it is true, the
nobler motive,--the lives of those you love; but I the deadlier,--the
death of one I hate! Hearken!"

She paused as if to gather strength for that which she had to reveal,
and then, reaching her hands out, she motioned the three men to gather
more closely about her, as if the blue Atlantic waves or the red boles
of the pine trees might carry the matter.

"Listen," she said, "the end comes fast--faster than any know, save I,
to whom for my sins the gift of second sight hath been given. I who
speak to you am of Brittany and of the House of De Thouars. To one of
us in each generation descends this abhorred gift of second sight. And
I, because as a child it was my lot to meet one wholly given over to
evil, have seen more and clearer than all that have gone before me.
But now I do foresee the end of the wickedest and most devilish soul
ever prisoned within the body of man."

As she spoke the heads of the three Scots bent lower and closer to
catch every word, for the voice of the Lady Sybilla was more like the
cooing of a mating turtle as it answers its comrade than that of a
woman betrayed, denouncing vengeance and death upon him whom her soul
hated.

"Be of good heart, then, and depart as I shall bid you. None can help
or hinder here at Machecoul but I alone. Be sure that at the worst the
unnameable shall not happen to the maids. For in me there is the power
to slay the evil-doer. But slay I will not unless it be to keep the
lives of the maids. Because I desire for Gilles de Retz a fate
greater, more terrible, more befitting iniquity such as the world hath
never heard spoken of since it arose from the abyss.

"And this is it given to me to bring upon him whom my soul hateth,"
she went on. "I have seen the hempen cord by which he shall hang. I
have seen the fire through which his soul shall pass to its own place.
Through me this fate shall come upon him suddenly in one night."

Her face lighted up with an inner glow, and shone translucent in the
darkening of the day and the dusk of the trees, as if the fair veil of
flesh wavered and changed about the vengeful soul within.

"And now," she went on after a pause, "I bid you, gentlemen of the
house of Douglas, to depart to John, Duke of Brittany, and having
found him to lay this paper before him. It contains the number and the
names of those who have died in the castles of de Retz. It shows in
what hidden places the bones of these slaughtered innocents may be
found. Clamour in his ear for justice in the name of the King of
France, and if he will not hear, then in the name of the folk of
Brittany. And if still because of his kinship he will not listen, go
to the Bishop of Nantes, who hates Gilles de Retz. Better than any he
knows how to stir the people, and he will send with you trusty men to
cause the country to rise in rebellion. Then they will overturn all
the castles of de Retz, and the hidden things shall come to light.
This do, and for this time depart from Machecoul, and entrust me (as
indeed you must) with the honour and lives of those you love. I will
keep them with mine own until destruction pass upon him who is outcast
from God, and whom now his own fiend from hell hath deserted."

Then, having sworn to do her bidding, the three Scots conducted the
Lady Sybilla with honour and observance to her white palfrey, and like
a spirit she vanished into the sea mists which had sifted up from the
west, going back to the drear Castle of Machecoul, but bearing with
her the burden of her revenge.




CHAPTER LIV

THE CROSS UNDER THE APRON


The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an
unholy lustre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles
with the black. In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about,
wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and
expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible
baron.

The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not
been wanting.

Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an
unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children
at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened
villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger,
a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a
huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five
years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast. With a great cry
he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with
scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in
the depth of the forest.

Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it
were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye,
was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the
Castle of Machecoul.

So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode
together all that day, sullen anger burning in their hearts. And one
calling himself the servant of the Bishop of Nantes went about among
them, and his words were as knives, sharp and bitter beyond belief.
And ever as he spoke the men turned them about till they faced
Machecoul. Their lips moved like those of a Moslemite who says his
prayers towards Mecca. And the words they uttered were indeed prayers
of solemnest import.

With his usual devotion at such seasons, Gilles de Retz had attended
service thrice that day in his Chapel of the Holy Innocents. His
behaviour had been marked by intense devoutness. An excessive
tenderness of conscience had characterised his confessions to Pere
Blouyn, his spiritual director-in-ordinary. He confessed as his most
flagrant sin that his thoughts were overmuch set on the vanities of
the world, and that he had even sometimes been tempted of the devil to
question the right of Holy Church herself to settle all questions
according to the will of her priests and prelates.

Whereupon Pere Blouyn, with suave correctness of judgment, had pointed
out wherein his master erred; but also cautioned him against that
undue tenderness of conscience natural to one with his exalted
position and high views of duty and life. Finally the marshal had
received absolution.

In the late afternoon the Lord of Retz commanded the fire to be laid
ready for lighting in his chamber aloft in the keep of Machecoul, and
set himself down to listen to the singing of the choir, which, under
the guidance of Precentor Renouf, rehearsed for him the sweetest hymns
recently written for the choir of the Holy Father at Rome. For there
the marshal's choir-master had been trained, and with its leader he
still kept up a correspondence upon kindred interests.

Gilles de Retz, as he sat under the late blooming roses in the
afternoon sunshine of the autumn of western France, appeared to the
casual eye one of the most noble seigneurs and the most enlightened in
the world. He affected a costume already semiecclesiastic as a token
of his ultimate intention to enter holy orders. It seemed indeed as if
the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid
had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek the heavenly.

There, upon a chair set within the cloisters, in a place which the
sunshine touched most lovingly and where it lingered longest, he sat,
nodding his head to the sound of the sweet singing, and bowing low at
each mention of the name of Jesus (as the custom is)--a still,
meditative, almost saintly man. Upon the lap of his furred robe (for,
after all, it was a sunshine with a certain shrewd wintriness in it)
lay an illuminated copy of the Holy Gospels; and sometimes as he
listened to the choir-boys singing, he glanced therein, and read of
the little children to whom belongs the kingdom. Upon occasion he
lifted the book also, and looked with pleasure at the pictured cherubs
who cheered the way of the Master Jerusalemwards with strewn palm
leaves and shouted hosannas.

And ever sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till
suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to
roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single
voice--that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite
sweetness the words of blessing:

"_Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
And forbid them not;
For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven._"

And as the boy's voice welled out, clear and thrilling as the song of
an upward pulsing lark, the tears ran down the face of Gilles de Retz.

God knows why. Perhaps it was some glint of his own innocent
childhood--some half-dimmed memory of his happily dead mother.
Perhaps--but enough. Gilles de Laval de Retz went up the turret stair
to find Poitou and Gilles de Sille on guard on either side the portals
which closed his chamber.

"Is all ready?" he asked, though the tears were scarcely dry on his
cheeks.

They bowed before him to the ground.

"All is ready, lord and master," they said as with one voice.

"And Prelati?"

"He is in waiting."

"And La Meffraye," he went on, "has she arrived?"

"La Meffraye has arrived," they said; "all goes fortunately."

"Good!" said Gilles de Retz, and shedding his furred monkish cloak
carelessly from off his shoulders, he went within.

Poitou and Gilles de Sille both reached to catch the mantle ere it
fell. As they did so their hands met and touched. And at the meeting
of each other's flesh they started and drew apart. Their eyes
encountered furtively and were instantly withdrawn. Then, having hung
up the cloak, with pallid countenances and lips white and tremulous,
they slowly followed the marshal within.

* * * * *

"Sybilla de Thouars, as you are in my power, so I bid you work my
will!"

It was the deep, stern voice of the Marshal de Retz which spoke. The
Lady Sybilla lay back in a great chair with her eyes closed, breathing
slowly and gently through her parted lips. Messire Gilles stood before
her with his hands joined palm to palm and his white fingertips almost
touching the girl's brow.

"Work my will and tell me what you see!"

Her hands were clasped under a light silken apron which she wore
descending from her neck and caught in a loose loop behind her gown.
The fingers were firmly netted one over the other and clutched between
them was a golden crucifix.

The girl was praying, as one prays who dares not speak.

"O God, who didst hang on this cross--keep now my soul. Condemn it
afterwards, but help me to keep it this night. Deliver me--oh, deliver
from the power of this man. Help me to lie. By Thy Son's blood, help
me to lie well this night."

"Where are the three men from the land of the Scots? Tell me what you
see. Tell me all," the marshal commanded, still standing before her in
the same posture.

Then the voice of the Lady Sybilla began to speak, low and even, and
with that strange halt at the end of the sentences. The Lord of Retz
nodded, well pleased when he heard the sound. It was the voice of the
seeress. Oftentimes he had heard it before, and it had never deceived
him.

"I see a boat on a stormy sea," she said; "there are three men in it.
One is great of stature and very strong. The others are young men.
They are trying to furl the sail. A gust strikes them. The boat heels
and goes over. I see them struggling in the pit of waters. There are
cliffs white and crumbling above them. They are calling for help as
they cling to the boat. Now there is but one of them left. I see him
trying to climb up the slippery rocks. He falls back each time. He is
weary with much buffeting. The waves break about him and suck him
under. Now I do not see the men any more, but I can hear the broken
mast of the boat knocking hollow and dull against the rocks. Some few
shreds of the sail are wrapped about it. But the three men are gone."

She ceased suddenly. Her lips stopped their curiously detached
utterance.

But under her breath and deep in her soul Sybilla de Thouars was still
praying as before. And this which follows was her prayer:

"O God, his devil is surely departed from him. I thank thee, God of
truth, for helping me to lie."

"It is well," said Gilles de Retz, standing erect with
a satisfied air. "All is well. The three Scots who sought my life are
gone to their destruction. Now, Sybilla de Thouars, I bid you look
upon John, Duke of Brittany. Tell me what he does and says."

The level, impassive, detached voice began again. The hands clasped
the cross of gold more closely under the silk apron.

"I see a room done about with silver scallop shells and white-painted
ermines. I see a fair, cunning-faced, soft man. Behind him stands one
tall, spare, haggard--"

"Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany--one that hates me," said
de Retz, grimly between his teeth. "I will meet my fingers about his
dog's throat yet. What of him?"

The Lady Sybilla, without a quiver of her shut eyelids took up the
cue.

"He hath his finger on a parchment. He strives to point out something
to the fair-haired man, but that other shakes his head and will not
agree--"

The marshal suddenly grew intent, and even excited.

"Look closer, Sybilla--look closer. Can you not read that which is
written on the parchment? I bid you, by all my power, to read it."

Then the countenance of the Lady Sybilla was altered. Striving and
blank failure were alternately expressed upon it.

"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" she cried.

"By my power, I bid you. By that which I will make you suffer if you
fail me, I command you!" cried Gilles de Retz, bending himself towards
her and pressing his fingers against her brow so that the points
dented her skin.

The tears sprang from underneath the dark lashes which lay so
tremulously upon her white cheek.

"You make me do it! It hurts! I cannot!" she said in the pitiful voice
of a child.

"Read--or suffer the shame!" cried Gilles de Retz.

"I will--oh, I will! Be not angry," she answered pleadingly.

And underneath the silk the hands were grasped with a grip like that
of a vice upon the golden cross she had borrowed from the little Maid
of Galloway.

"Read me that which is written on the paper," said the marshal.

The Lady Sybilla began to speak in a voice so low that Gilles de Retz
had to incline his ear very close to her lips to listen.

"Accusation against the great lord and most noble seigneur, Gilles de
Laval de Retz, Sire de--"

"That is it--go on after the titles," said the eager voice of the
marshal.

"Accused of having molested the messengers of his suzerain, the
supreme Duke John of Brittany, accused of ill intent against the
State; accused of quartering the arms-royal upon his shield; called to
answer for these offences in the city of Nantes--and that is all."

She ended abruptly, like one who is tired and desires no more than to
sleep.

Gilles de Retz drew a long sigh of relief.

"All is hid," he said; "these things are less than nothing. What does
the Duke?"

"I cannot look again, I am weary," she said.

"Look again!" thundered her taskmaster.

"I see the fair-haired man take the parchment from the hand of the
dark, stern man--"

"With whom I will reckon!"

"He tries to tear it in two, but cannot. He throws it angrily in the
fire."

"My enemies are destroyed," said Gilles de Retz, "I thank thee, great
Barran-Sathanas. Thou hast indeed done that which thou didst promise.
Henceforth I am thy servant and thy slave."

So saying, he took a glass of water from the table and dashed it on
the face of the Lady Sybilla.

"Awake," he said, "you have done well. Go now and repose that you may
again be ready when I have need of you."

A flicker of conscious life appeared under the purple-veined eyelids
of the Lady Sybilla. Her long, dark lashes quivered, tried to rise,
and again lay still.

The marshal took the illuminated copy of the Evangelists from the
table and fanned her with the thin parchment leaves.

"Awake!" he cried harshly and sternly.

The eyes of the girl slowly opened their pupils dark and dilated. She
carried her hand to her head, but wearily, as if even that slight
movement pained her. The golden cross swung unseen under the silken
folds of her apron.

"I am so tired--so tired," the girl murmured to herself as Gilles de
Retz assisted her to rise. Then hastily handing her over to Poitou, he
bade him conduct her to her own chamber.

But as she went through the door of the marshal's laboratory she
looked upon the floor and smiled almost joyously.

"His devil has indeed departed from him," she murmured to herself. "I
thank the God of Righteousness who this night hath enabled me to
baffle him with a woman's poor wit, and to lie to him that he may be
led quick to destruction, and fall himself into the pit which he hath
prepared for the feet of the innocent."




CHAPTER LV

THE RED MILK


Darkly and swiftly the autumn night descended upon Machecoul. In the
streets of the little feudal bourg there were few passers-by, and such
as there were clutched their cloaks tighter round them and scurried
on. Or if they raised their heads, it was only to take a hasty,
fearful glance at the vast bulk of the castle looming imminent above
them.

From a window high in the central keep a red light streamed out, and
when the clouds flew low, strange dilated shadows were wont to be cast
upon the rolling vapour. Sometimes smoke, acrid and heavy, bellied
forth, and anon wild cries of pain and agony floated down to silence
the footfalls of the home-returning rustics and chill the hearts of
burghers trembling in their beds.

But none dared to question in public the doings of the great and
puissant lord of all the country of Retz. It fared not well with him
who even looked too much at the things which were done.

The night was yet darker up aloft in the Castle of Machecoul itself.
In the sacristy good Father Blouyn, with an air of resigned
reluctance, was handing over to an emissary of his master the moulds
in which the tall altar candles for the Chapel of the Holy Innocents
were usually cast and compacted. And as Clerk Henriet went out with
the moulds he took a long look through a private spy-hole at the lads
of the choir who were sitting in the hall apportioned to their use.
They were supposed to be busy with their lessons, and, indeed, a few
were poring over their books with some show of studious absorption.
But for the most part they were playing at cards and dominos, or, in
the absence of the master, sticking intimate pins and throwing about
indiscriminate ink, according to the immemorial use of the choir-boy.

Clerk Henriet counted them twice over and in especial looked carefully
to see what did the young Scots lad, who had so mysteriously escaped
from the dread room of his master. Laurence MacKim played X's and O's
upon a board with Blaise Renouf, the precentor's son, and at some
hitch in the game he incontinently clouted the Frenchman upon the ear.
Whereupon ensued trouble and the spilling of much ink.

Henriet, perfectly satisfied, took up the heavy moulds and made his
way to his lord's chamber, where many things were used for purposes
other than those for which they had been intended.

Upon the back of his departure came in the Precentor Renouf, who laid
his baton conjointly and freely about the ears of his son and those of
Laurence MacKim.

"Get to your beds both of you, and that supperless, for uproar and
conduct ill becoming two youths who worship God all day in his
sanctuary, and are maintained at grievous expense by our most devout
and worthy lord, Messire Gilles of Laval and Retz, Seigneur and Lord!"

Laurence, who had of set purpose provoked the quarrel, was slinking
away, when the "Psalta" (as the choir-master is called in lower
Brittany) ordered them to sleep in separate rooms for the better
keeping of the peace.

"And do you, Master Laurence, perform your vigil of the night upon the
pavement of the chapel. For you are the most rebellious and
troublesome of all--indeed, past bearing. Go! Not a word, sirrah!"

So, much rejoiced in heart that matters had thus fallen out, Laurence
MacKim betook himself to the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, and was
duly locked in by the irate precentor.

For, upon various occasions, he had watched the Lord of Retz descend
into the chapel by a private staircase which opened out in an angle
behind the altar. He had also seen Poitou, his confidential
body-servant, lock it after him with a small key of a yellow colour
which he took from his fork pocket.

Now Master Laurence, as may have already been observed, was (like most
of the youthful unordained clergy) little troubled, at least in minor
matters, with scruples about such slight distinctions as those which
divide _meum_ and _tuum_. He found no difficulty therefore in
abstracting this key when Poitou was engaged in attending his master
from the chapel, in which service it was his duty to pass the stalls
with open lattice ends of carven work in which sat the elder
choir-boys. Having secured the key, Laurence hid it instantly beneath
the leaden saint on his cap, refastening the long pin which kept our
Lady of Luz in her place through the fretwork of the little brazen
key.

Presently he saw Poitou come back and look carefully here and there
upon the floor, but after a while, not finding anything, he went out
again to search elsewhere.

The idea had come to Laurence that at the head of the stairway from
the chapel was the prison chamber of Maud Lindesay and her ward, the
little Maid Margaret of Galloway.

He told himself at least that this was his main object, and doubtless
he had the matter in his mind. But a far stronger motive was his
curiosity and the magic influence of the mysterious and the unknown
upon the heart of youth.

More than to deliver Margaret of Galloway, Laurence longed to look
again upon the iron altar and to know the truth concerning the strange
sacrifices which were consummated there. And he yearned to see again
that rough-eared image graven after the fashion of a man.

And the reason was not far to seek.

For if even the worship of the High God, according to the practice of
the most enlightened nations, grounds itself upon blood and sacrifice,
what wonder if, in the worship of the lords of Hell, the blood of the
innocent is an oblation well pleasing and desirable.

Rooted and ineradicable is the desire in man's heart to know good and
evil--but particularly evil. And so now Laurence desired to see the
sacrifice laid between the horns of the altar and the image above lean
over as if to gloat upon the sweet savour of its burning.

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