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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




Long and carefully Laurence listened before he ventured forth. The
Chapel of the Innocents was dark and silent. Only a reflection of the
red light which burned in the keep struck through the clerestory upon
the great cross which swung above the altar. This, being dispersed
like a halo about the sign of Christ's redemption, rendered the corner
where was placed the door into the secret stairway light enough to
enable the youth to insert therein Poitou's key. The wards were turned
with well-accustomed smoothness.

Carefully shutting the door behind him so that if any one chanced to
enter the chapel nothing would be observed, Laurence set his feet upon
the steps and began his adventure of supreme peril.

It was a narrow staircase, only wide enough indeed for one to ascend
or descend at once. And the heart of Laurence sank within him at the
thought of meeting the dread Lord of Machecoul face to face in its
strait, black spirals.

He accomplished the ascent, however, without incident, and, passing
through another low arch, found himself at the end of the passage over
against the door with the curious burned hieroglyphics imprinted upon
it. There was no light in the corridor, and Laurence eagerly set his
hand to the latch. It opened as before and admitted him at a touch.

The temple-like hall was silent and dim. Only an occasional thrill as
if of an earthquake passed across it, waving the heavy hangings and
bringing a hot breath of some strange heady perfume to the nostrils.
Laurence, with a beating heart, ensconced himself in a hidden nook
behind the door. The niche was covered by a curtain and furnished with
a grooved slab of marble placed there for some purpose he could not
fathom.

Yet it was by no means wholly dark. A light shone into the Chapel of
Evil from the opposite side, and through it he could discern shadows
cast upon the floors and striding gigantic across the roof, as unseen
personages passed the light which streamed into the dusky temple.

In the gloomiest part of the background, hinted rather than seen, he
could make out the vast dark figure dominating the iron altar.

Then Laurence remembered that the chamber of the marshal lay on the
other side--the room with the immense fireplace which he had once
entered and from which he had barely escaped with his life.

Little by little Laurence raised himself upon the grooved slab until,
standing erect, he could see some small part of the whitewashed,
red-floored chamber he remembered so well--only a strip, however,
extending from the door through which he looked to the great fireplace
whereon the heaped wood had already been kindled.

At first all was confused. Laurence saw Henriet and Poitou going
hastily here and there, as servitors do who prepare for a great
function. Then came a pause, heavy with doom. On the back of this he
heard or seemed to hear the frightened pleading of a child, the short,
sharp commands of a soldier's voice, a sound as of a blow stricken,
and then again a whimpering hush. Laurence leaned against the wall
with his face in his hands. He dared not look within. Then he lifted
his head, and lo! in the gloom it seemed as if the huge image had
turned towards him, and in a pleased, confidential way were nodding
approval of his presence.

He heard the voice of the Marshal de Retz again--this time kindly, and
even affectionate. Some one was not to be frightened. Some one was to
take a draught from the goblet and fear nothing. They would not hurt
him. They had but played with him.

Again Henriet and Poitou passed and repassed, and once Gilles de Sille
flashed across the interspace handing a broad-edged gleaming knife
swiftly and surreptitiously to some one unseen.

Then came a short, sharp cry of agony, a gurgling moan, and black,
blank, unutterable horror shut down on Laurence's spirit.

He sank down on his face behind the door and covered his eyes and ears
with his hands. So he lay for a space without motion, almost without
sense, upon the naked grooves of the marble slab. When he came to
himself, a dusky light was diffused through the chapel. As he looked
he saw La Meffraye come to the door and set her face within, like some
bird of night, hideous and foul. Then she returned and Gilles de Sille
and Clerk Henriet came into the chapel bearing between them a great
golden cup, filled (as it seemed by the care with which they carried
it) to the very brim with some precious liquid.

To them, all clad in a priest's robe of flame-coloured velvet,
succeeded the Lord of Retz himself. He held in his hand like a
service-book the great manuscript written in red, which he had been
transcribing at Sybilla's entrance, and as he walked he chanted, with
a strange intonation, words that thrilled the very soul of the young
man listening.

And yet, as Laurence looked forth from his hiding-place, it appeared
that the black statue nodded once more to him as one who would say,
"Take note and remember what thou seest; for one day thy testimony
shall be needful."

These were the words he heard in the chanting monotone:

"O great and mighty Barran-Sathanas--my only lord and master, whom
with all due observance I do worship, look mercifully upon this the
sacrifice of innocent blood; let it be grateful to thee--to whom all
evil is as the breath of life!

"Hear us, O Barran-Sathanas! Thou hast been deaf in past days, because
we served thee not without drawback or withholding, without sparing
and without remorse. Because we hesitated to give thee the best, the
delicatest, the most pitiful. But now take this innocentest innocence.
Behold I, Gilles de Retz, make to thee the matchless sacrifice of the
Red Milk thou lovest.

"The Red Milk I pour for thee. The Red Milk I bring thee. The Red Milk
I drink to thee--that thou mayest be pleased to restore vital energy
and new youth to my veins, to make me strong as a young man in his
strength, and wiser than the wisdom of age. Hear me, O great master of
all the evil of the universe, thou equal and coadjutor of the Master
of Good, hear and manifest thy so mighty power. Hear me and answer, O
Barran-Sathanas!"

Gilles de Retz took the cup from the hands of the servitors. He seemed
so weak with his crying that he could hardly hold it between his
trembling palms.

He lifted his head and again cried aloud:

"See, I am weak, my Satan--see how I tremble. Strength is departed
from me. Youth is dead. Help thy faithful servant, aid him to lift up
this precious oblation to thee!"

And as the great dusky image seemed to lean over him, with a hoarse
cry Gilles de Retz raised the cup and held it high above his head. As
he did so a beam, sudden as lightning, fell upon it, and with a quick,
instinctive horror, Laurence saw that it was filled to the brim with
blood fresh and red.

The marshal's voice strengthened.

"It is coming! It is coming! Barran manifests himself! O great lord,
to thee I drain this draught!" cried Gilles de Retz. "The Red Milk,
the precious milk of innocence, to thee I drink it!"

And he set the cup to his lips and drank deep and long.

* * * * *

"It comes. It fills me. I am strong. O Barran, give me yet more
strength. My limbs revive. My pulse beats. I am young as when I rode
with Dunois. Barran, thou art indeed mightier than God. I will give
thee yet more and more. I swear it. I have kept the best wine till the
last--the death vintage of a great house. The wine of beauty and
brightness--I have kept it for thee. Halt not to make me stronger!
Help me--Barran, help--I fail--!"

His voice had risen higher and higher till it was well nigh a scream
of agony. Strangely too, in spite of the fictitious youth that glowed
in his veins and coloured his cheek, it sounded like a senile shriek.

But all suddenly, at the very height of his exaltation, the cup from
which he had drunk slipped from his hand and rolled upon the
tesselated pavement of the temple, staining it in gouts and vivid
blotches of crimson.

"Hasten, ere I lose the power--I feel it checked. Poitou, De Sille,
Henriet, go bring hither from the White Tower the Scottish maids.
Run, dogs--or you die! Quick, Henriet! Good De Sille, quick! Fail not
your master now! It ebbs, it weakens--and it was so near completion.
Stay, O Barran, till I finish the sacrifice, and here at thy feet
offer up to thee the richest, and the fairest, and the noblest! Bring
hither the maidens! I tell you, bring them quickly!"

And the terrible Lord of Retz, exhausted with his own fury, cast
himself at the feet of the gigantic image, which, bending over him,
seemed with the same grimace sardonically to mock alike his exaltation
and his downfall.

But Laurence heard no more. For sense and feeling had wholly departed
from him, and he lay as one dead behind the door of the temple of
Barran-Sathanas, Lord of Evil, in the thrice-abhorrent Castle of
Machecoul.




CHAPTER LVI

THE SHADOW BEHIND THE THRONE


Within the grim walls of Black Angers Duke John of Brittany and
reigning sovereign of western France was holding his court. The city
and fortress did not properly, of right and parchment holding,
appertain to him. But he had occupied it during the recent troubles
with the English, and his loving cousin and nominal suzerain Charles
the Seventh of France had not yet been strong enough to make him
render it up again.

The Duke sat in the central tower of the fortress of Black Angers,
that which looks between the high flanking turrets of the mighty
enceinte of walls. He wriggled discontentedly in his chair and
grumbled under his breath.

At his shoulder, tall, gaunt, angular, with lantern jaws and a mouth
like a wolf trap, deep-set eyes that flamed under bushy eyebrows,
stood Pierre de l'Hopital, the true master of Brittany.

"I tell you I will go to the tennis-courts--the three Scots must wait
audience till to-morrow. What errand can they have with me--some
rascals whom Charles will not pay now that his job is done? They come
to take service doubtless. A beggarly lot are all such out-land
varlets, but brave--yes, excellent soldiers are the Scots, so long as
they are well fed, that is."

"Nay, my Lord Duke," said Pierre de l'Hopital, standing up tall and
sombre, his long black gown accentuating the peculiarities of his
figure. "It were almost necessary to see these men now and hear what
they have to say. I myself have seen them and judge it to be so."

John of Brittany threw down the little sceptre, fashioned in imitation
of that made for the King of France, with which he had been toying.
The action was that of a pettish child.

"Oh," he cried, "if you have decided, there remains nothing for me but
to obey!"

"I thank your Excellency for your gracious readiness to grant the men
an interview," said Pierre de l'Hopital, having regard to the
essential matter and disregarding the unessential manner.

Duke John sat glooming and kicking his feet to and fro on the raised
dais, while behind his chair, impassive as the Grand Inquisitor
himself, Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany, lifted a hand to
an unseen servitor; and in a few moments the three Scots were ushered
into the ducal presence.

The Lord James in virtue of his quality stood a little in front, not
by his own will or desire, but because Sholto and his father had so
placed themselves that the young noble should have his own rightful
precedence. For as to these things all Scots are careful by nature.

Duke John continued to keep his eyes averted from the men who sought
his presence. He teased a little lop-eared spaniel, and nipped it till
it yelped. But the President of Brittany never took his eyes off the
strangers, examining them with a bold, keen, remorseless glance, in
which, however, there was neither evil nor the tolerance of it. Not a
man to make himself greatly beloved, this Pierre de l'Hopital.

And little he cared whether or no. In Brittany men did his will. That
was enough.

James Douglas was nettled at the inattention of the Duke. He was of
that large and sanguine nature which is at once easily touched by any
discourtesy and very quick to resent it.

"My Lord of Brittany," he began in a loud clear voice, and in his
usual immaculate French, "I claim your attention for a little. I come
to lay before you that which touches your kin and kingdom."

Duke John continued to play with the lap-dog, and in addition he
formed his mouth to whistle. But he never whistled.

"His Grace of Brittany will now give you his undivided attention,"
said the President from behind, without moving a muscle either of his
body or of his face, save those necessary to propel the words from his
vocal cords.

The brow of Duke John flushed with anger, but he did not disobey. He
raised his head and gazed straight at the three men, fixing his eyes,
however, with a studied discourtesy upon Sholto instead of upon their
natural leader and spokesman.

Behind his chair Pierre de l'Hopital let his deep inscrutable eye
droop once upon his master, and his spare and sinewy wrists twitched
as he held his arms by his side. He seemed upon the point of dealing
ducal dignity a box on the ear both sound and improving.

"I am the Lord James of Douglas and Avondale," said the leader of the
Scots with grave dignity, "and I had three years ago the honour of
breaking a lance with you in the tilt-yard of Poitiers, when in that
town your Grace met with the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy."

At this John of Brittany looked up quickly.

"I do not remember you," he said, "and I never forget faces. Even
Pierre will grant me that."

"Your Grace may possibly remember, then, the dint in your shoulder
that you got from the point of a spear, caused by the breaking of the
links of your shoulder-piece."

A light kindled in the Duke's eyes.

"What," he cried, "you are the young Scot who fought so well and kept
his shield up day by day over the door of a common sergeant's tent,
having no pavilion of his own, till it was all over dints like an
alehouse tankard?"

"As were also the knights who dinted it," grimly commented Pierre de
l'Hopital.

The Lord James of Avondale bowed.

"I am that knight," he said quietly and with gravity.

"But," cried the Duke, "I knew not then that you were of Douglas. That
is a great name in Poitiers, and had we known your race and quality we
had not been so ready with our shield-rapping."

"At that time," said James Douglas, "I had not the right to add 'of
Douglas' to my titles. But during this year my father hath succeeded
to the Earldom and estates."

"What--then is your father Duke of Touraine?" cried the Duke of
Brittany, much astonished.

"Nay, my lord," said James Douglas, with some little bitterness. "The
King of France hath caused that to revert to himself by the success
which attended a certain mission executed for him in Scotland by his
Chamberlain, the Marshal de Retz, concerning whom we have come from
far to speak with you."

"Ah, my cousin Gilles!" cried Duke John. "He is not a beauty to look
at, but he is a brave man, our Gilles. I heard he had gone to
Scotland. I wonder if he contrived to make himself as popular in your
land as he has done in ours."

With a certain grave severity to which Pierre de l'Hopital nodded
approval, the Lord James replied: "At the instigation of the King of
France and Louis the Dauphin he succeeded in murdering my two cousins
William and David of Douglas, and in carrying over hither with him to
his own country their only sister, the little Countess of
Galloway--thus rooting out the greatest house in Scotland to the hurt
of the whole realm."

"But to your profit, my Lord James of Avondale," commented the hollow
voice of Pierre de l'Hopital, speaking over his master's head.

The face of James Douglas flushed quickly.

"No, messire," he answered with a swift heat. "Not to my profit--to my
infinite loss. For I loved my cousin. I honoured him, and for his sake
would have fought to the death. For his sake have I renounced my own
father that begat me. And for his sake I stand here to ask for justice
to the little maiden, the last of his race, to whom by right belongs
the fairest province of his dominions. No, messire, you are wrong. In
all this have I had no profit but only infinite hurt."

Pierre de l'Hopital bowed low. There was a pleased look on his face
that almost amounted to a smile.

"I crave your pardon, my lord," he said; "that is well said indeed,
and he is a gentleman who speaks it."

"Aye, it is indeed well said, and he had you shrewdly on the hip that
time, Pierre," cried Duke John. "I wish he could teach me thus
cleverly to answer you when you croak."

"If you had as good a cause, my lord," said the President of Brittany
to the Duke, "it were not difficult to answer me as sharply. But we
are keeping these gentlemen from declaring the purpose of their
journey hither."

The Lord James waited for no further invitation.

"I come," he said boldly, holding a parchment in his hand, the same he
had received from the Lady Sybilla, "to denounce Gilles de Retz and to
accuse him of many cruel and unrighteous acts such as have never been
done in any kingdom. I accuse him of the murder of over four hundred
children of all ages and both sexes in circumstances of unparalleled
barbarity. I am ready to lead you to the places where lie their
bodies, some of them burned and their ashes cast into the ditch,
others charred and thrown into unused towers. I have here names,
instances, evidence enough to taint and condemn a hundred monsters
such as Gilles de Retz."

"Ah, give me the paper," came the raucous voice of the President of
Brittany, as he reached a bony hand over his master's shoulder to
seize it.

The Lord James advanced, and giving it to him said, "Messire, I would
have you know that a copy of this is already in the hands of a trusty
person in each of the towns and villages which are named here, and
from which children have been led to cruel death by him whom I have
accused, Gilles de Retz, Marshal of France."

The President of Brittany nodded as he almost snatched the paper in
his eagerness to peruse it.

"The point is cleverly taken," he said, "as justly indeed as if you
knew my Lord of Brittany as well as, for instance, I know him."

The Duke was obviously discomfited. He shuffled his feet more than
ever on the dais and combed his straggling fair beard with soft,
white, tapering fingers.

"This is wild and wholly absurd," he said, without however looking at
James Douglas; "our cousin Gilles is in ill odour with the commonalty.
He is a philosopher and makes smells with bottles. But there is
neither harm nor witchcraft in it. He is only trying to discover the
elixir of life. So the silly folk think him a wizard. I know him
better. He is a brave soldier and my good cousin. I will not have him
molested."

"My lord speaks of kinship," grated the voice of Pierre de l'Hopital.
"Here are the names of four hundred fathers and mothers who have also
a claim to be heard on that subject, and whose voices, if I judge
right, are being heard at this moment around the Castles of Machecoul,
Tiffauges, Champtoce, and Pouzages. I wot there is now a crowd of a
thousand men pouring through the passages of the Hotel de Suze in your
Grace's own ducal city of Nantes. And if there goes a bruit abroad,
that your Highness is protecting this monster whom the people hate,
and the evidences of whose horrid cruelty are by this time in their
hands--well, your Grace knows the Bretons as well as I. They will
make one end of Gilles de Retz and of his cousin John, Duke of
Brittany."

"Think you so--think you so truly, Pierre?" cried the unhappy reigning
prince; "I would not screen him if this be true. But the King--what of
the King? They say he hath promised him support with arms and men for
recovering to him and to Louis the Dauphin the Duchy of Touraine."

"And think you, my lord, that the Dauphin will keep his promise, if we
show him good cause why he should fare better by breaking it?"
suggested Pierre de l'Hopital, with the grim irony which had become
habitual to him.

John of Brittany paused irresolute.

"Besides which," continued James Douglas, "I may add that this paper
is already in the hands of the Cardinal Bishop of Nantes, and if your
Grace will not move in the matter, his Eminence has promised to see
justice done."

"The hireling--the popular mouther after favour! I know him," cried
Duke John, angrily. "What accursed demon sent you to him? In this, as
in other matters, he will strive to oust me from the hearts of the
folk of Brittany. He will be the people's advocate and will gain great
honour from this trial, will he? We shall see. Ho! guards there! Turn
out. Summon those that are asleep. Let the full muster be called. I
will lead you to Machecoul myself. And these gentlemen shall march
with us. But by Heaven and the bones of Saint Anne of Auray, if in one
jot they shall fail to substantiate against Gilles de Retz those
things which they have testified, they shall die by the rack, and by
the cord, and by disembowelling, and by fire. So swear I, Duke John
of Brittany."

"It is good," said James Douglas. And "It is good," accorded also
Malise and Sholto MacKim.

"But before any dies in Brittany, Gilles de Retz or another, _I_ will
judge the case," commented Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Justice
and Grand Councillor of the reigning sovereign.




CHAPTER LVII

THE TOWER OF DEATH


Throughout La Vendee and all the country of Retz had run a terrible
rumour. "The Marshal de Retz is the murderer of our children. He has a
thousand bodies in the vaults of his castles. The Duke of Brittany has
given orders that they shall be searched. His soldiers are forsaking
him. The names of the dead have been written in black and white, and
are in the hands of the headmen of the villages. Hasten--it is the
hour of vengeance! Let us overwhelm him! Rise up and let us seek our
lost ones, even if we find no more than their bones!"

And terrible as had been the gathering of the were-wolves in the dark
forests around Machecoul upon the night of the fight by the hollow
tree, far more threatening and terrible was the uprising of the angry
commons.

In whole villages there was not a man left, and mothers too marched in
that muster armed with choppers and kitchen knives, wild eyed and
angry hearted as lionesses robbed of their cubs. From the deep glens
and deeper woods of the country of Retz they poured. They disgorged
from the caves of the earth whither the greed and rapacity of their
terrible lord had driven them.

Schoolmasters were there with the elder of their pupils. For many of
the vanished children had disappeared on their way to school, and
these men were in danger of losing both their credit and occupation.

Towards Tiffauges, Champtoce, Machecoul, the angry populace, long
repressed, surged tumultuously, and with them, much wondering at their
orders, went the soldiers of the Duke.

But it is with the columns that concentrated upon Machecoul that we
have chiefly to do. Our three Scots accompanied these, and here, too,
marched John of Brittany himself with his Councillor Pierre de
l'Hopital by his side.

Night fell as they journeyed on, ever joined by fresh contingents from
all the country round. In the van pressed forward the folk of Saint
Philbert, warm from the utter destruction of the house of the witch
woman, La Meffraye, so that not one stone was left upon another.
Guided by these the Duke and his party made their way easily through
the forest, even in the darkness of the night. And as they passed
hamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied mother would rush upon
them and fall on her knees before the Duke, praying him to look well
for her darling, and bringing mayhap some pitiful shred of clothing or
lock of hair by which the searchers might identify the lost innocent.

As they went forward the soldiers pricked on ahead, and caused the
people to fall to the rear, lest any foreknowledge of their purpose
might reach the wizard and warn him to escape.

The woods of Machecoul were dark and silent that night. Not the howl
of a questing wolf was heard. Truly the marshal's demons had forsaken
him, or mayhap they were all busy at that last carnival in the keep
of the Castle of Machecoul.

As the storming party approached nearer, and while yet they were
several miles distant, they became aware of a great red light that
gleamed forth above them. They could not see whence it came, but the
peasants of Saint Philbert with affrighted glances told how it
beaconed only after the disappearance of some little one from their
homes, what strange cries were heard ringing out from that lofty
tower, and how for days after the smoke of a great burning would hang
about the gloomy turrets of devil-haunted Machecoul.

Fiercer and ever fiercer shone the red glare, and the faces of the
soldiers were lit up so that Pierre de l'Hopital ordered them to keep
to the more gloomy arcades of the forest.

Then by midnight the cordon was drawn so closely that none might pass
in or out. And behind the soldiery the common folk lay crouched, anger
in their hearts, and their eyes turned towards the open windows in the
keep of Machecoul, from which flared the red light of bale.

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