Chapter III: The Phial of Acquetta

The bunches of wax candles were lit in the parlour reserved for the King’s intimate gatherings. Across the outside vision of lowering sky and of black water, spangled with tossing lights, citron-yellow curtains were drawn.

The new Venetian chandelier sparkled with delicate opalescent tints as it hung over the supper table: there were pink roses and green leaves, amber flowers and blue, most wondrously wrought in glass upon its twisted branches. The cluster of goblets on the buffet, shot with gold, had the glow of jewels. Two cups stood out from the rest: each had a fantastic sea-horse with dragon tail for its base, supporting on its grotesque head—gaping-jawed with red-curved tongue—a bowl as fine and as miraculously coloured as a bubble. This delicate, magic array of colour and sheen was reflected in a great mirror which filled the panel of the wall behind the table.

This last of the Venice gifts was of severer art than the rest; and where it did not hold the bubble splendour repeated in its depths, it shone coldly, crystal and silver, from the dark wainscot.

Charles was momentarily lifted out of his heavy mood by amusement and curiosity.

“Marry!” he said, “if these be our cousin of France’s leavings, what must be the treasure he has kept! Look up, my lord, this mirror—’tis a curious and pretty piece, and reflects the light a hundred times more gaily than our silver and bronze. And the drinking gear yonder…! The Apocalypse itself in glass!”

He strode to the side-table and laid a finger against the fair cheek of one of the goblets—then he glanced up and caught sight of his own dark visage in the new mirror. The gleam of satisfaction instantly vanished from the long and melancholy countenance.

“And gad, my lord,” he cried, “if you think I shall be left as much as this little tass, within a week! Oh—there’ll be one whose face will look vastly better than mine in yonder mirror; and another whose tiring-room can never be bright again without such a toy as yon!”

He turned and snapped his fingers impatiently toward the soft-footed servants who came and went between the door and the sideboard with viands and flasks.

“Away with them, away with them! We’ll sit together as in old times—eh, my merry Rockhurst?—and keep but Little Satan there to fill a cup.”

“I oft waited on you, alone, in Holland and elsewhere, sire,” responded the Lord Constable’s deep voice.

“Aye, aye,” said the King, in the same half-testy, half good-humoured manner. “But we have a demon handy to-night. Tush, man,” proceeded he, flinging himself into the leathern chair and shaking out the Flemish napkin, “things are better with us, and things are worse with us; let us drink and remember—and drink and forget! Ha, my lord, we oft had neither pasty nor capon in those days—but I’ll say that for thee, Harry, you were master cellarer, and you never let me lack decent wine—”

“My liege,” said Rockhurst, a note of tenderness creeping in through his grave tones, “we had to pledge a great cause, and the wine had to be worthy of the cup!”

“Truly,” said Charles. “I mind me of a certain yellow Rhenish: it had a smack—where you got it I never knew, Harry, but it had a smack!—The cause, say you? Plague on your hypocritical gravity…! Tush, man, we drank to black eyes and blue, to trim ankles and laughing tongues. Those were the days of that jade Lucy … ha, the pair of eyes! And what shall we pledge to-night?”

“Why, then, the old days, your Majesty.”

“Aye—the old days, good days … and all the better, being past! None can say I am an ambitious sovereign—eh, my solemn Constable? I ask no more of my people than that they should never send me on my travels again.… ’Tis modest, patriarchal—a home-keeping sovereign! No one can accuse me of not spending my substance among my subjects!”

“Indeed and indeed, no, sire!” said Rockhurst, without the slightest twinkle in his straight look. “As for spending, my liege, your Majesty has indeed a royal mastery of the art.”

“Go to!” said the King. “Wet that too dry humour of thine with a draught.—Nay, Little Satan, none of your dark-liveried claret to-night; we’ll have the merry yellow wine in yonder long flagon. Away with this dull glass, too.—Go, play with the Apocalypse. Those dragon beakers, I’ll swear they’ll hold half the flagon apiece.—And you shall have a brimmer and drink it to the last drop, my Lord Constable, for if I’m never to have you a merry dog again, by the Lord, I’ll have you a drunk one!—Vidame, I say you shall see my reverend Lord Constable drunk, and have something to laugh at to your dying day—for ’tis then the solemnest villain that ever staggered on human legs.”

Enguerrand had been a presence in the room as noiseless as a spirit. Yet every word that passed between the two men—the sovereign and his old comrade—had added intensity to his murderous passion. The boy loved the King. Unhappy, abnormal creature! He could neither love nor hate in reason, was as much racked with jealousy of his master’s regard as a lover of his mistress’s favour. Every look of old familiar friendship that Charles flung at Lord Rockhurst, every easy word, proclaiming a sympathy and confidence that placed them almost on brotherly equality, was as a lash on the raw wound of his pride—a spur to his leaping hatred.

At the King’s command he filled one of the dragon beakers from the long-necked bottle with a singular precision, though his hand was cold as ice, and his pulse beat to suffocation in his throat. He set the wonderful glass—more wonderful than ever now, with the golden liquid shining within its flanks—beside the King’s plate.

“Odd’s fish—a truly royal cup! As I live, the fair half of the bottle!… Now, boy, the other half to my Lord Constable.”

* * * * *

Over by the sideboard, under the cold gleam of the mirror, the King’s page paused a second, and his hand went a last time to his breast. Out, little phial! It lay in the hollow of his palm, no larger than a lady’s thimble. Break, silken thread! His moment had come: the lover would kiss his dark mistress on the lips! There was buzzing as of a thousand angry bees in his ears.… He never noted how still the room had grown. Now his hand hovered over the rim of the full beaker—a strange gesture, as of the priest blessing the cup…!

“Little Satan.…” said the King.

Though neither loud nor sharp, there was something so singular in Charles’s voice that Rockhurst started from his wonted abstraction.

As for Enguerrand, he was struck full into his heart. Involuntarily he straightened his hand and the empty phial fell lightly on the carpet. He remained a moment staring into nothingness; then slowly raised his eyes, and met the King’s eyes in the Venetian mirror.

Charles’s face in the glass … his glance was terrible! Terrible, too, was his voice as he spoke again, though it was lower than usual, and very distinct, very quiet:—

“Bring me that cup, Little Satan.”

And as the boy mechanically lifted the dragon goblet and turned round, holding it in both hands, for it was brimming, Charles leaned across the table and passed the twin cup, his own, toward Rockhurst, who sat in wonder.

“The King should have the fuller draught,” he said. “Why do you wait there, Little Satan?—Bring me that cup, that I may pledge my noble friend the Lord Constable.”

With this Enguerrand heard his doom. Had the King ordered him to torture and death he could not have punished him so mortally as by this quiet order.

A second more he stood, with fascinated eyes, staring at his beloved master: there was not the faintest answer in Charles’s relentless gaze. Then a dreadful smile broke on the young face. Without a word Enguerrand de Joncelles lifted the beaker to his own lips and drank.

It was a long draught, and every gulp was an effort to the constricted throat. Yet there was no interruption; and for a seemingly endless span of silence and tension the boy stood and drew the death into himself—his eyes, over the lovely, fragile rim, fixed in agony upon the King.

Charles made no sign, but waited.

When the last drop was drained, Enguerrand unclasped his fingers on either side. The dragon glass fell and was shivered.

Here Rockhurst leaped to his feet.

“Good God, your Majesty!” he exclaimed. “What is this?”

“Sit down again,” said the King, coldly. “The Vidame de Joncelles has voluntarily assumed to-night a new service about our person. It is a service which hath fallen into desuetude at the Court of England. And the young gentleman has proved a greedy taster and a clumsy one.—I am still waiting for my wine.”

Rockhurst’s gaze went in deep uneasiness from Charles’s face, set in lines of unwonted severity, to the livid countenance of the boy, who leaned back against the sideboard, scarce able to support himself.

“Your pardon, sire,” he began, pushing back his own cup—“the matter can scarce remain.…”

But his sovereign again interrupted him, this time with the royal peremptoriness which admits of no discussion:—

“There is but one thing we will not pardon, and it is that you add to our tedium: we commanded your presence here to-night that you might share it, not to increase it. But, meanwhile we are waiting,—Monsieur de Joncelles,”—and for the first time he raised his voice sharply,—“we are waiting.”

The boy passed his hand across his forehead and dashed back the curls that were already growing damp. That the King should have no pity on him, and yet spare him thus—it was befitting one whom he had worshipped from the very first for his true royalty. A kind of fierce pride awoke in him and spurred him to meet his death in a manner worthy of such clement cruelty. Though the lights were beginning to swim before his eyes and he rather groped than saw, he contrived to open a second flask and fill another of the Venetian beakers.

Then—for French Joan had been faithful, and swift was the working of her gift—he had to make a heroic effort to bring the glass to the King. But the very fierceness of the effort, final flare of an indomitable spirit, carried the failing body through.

Enguerrand came to the table with measured step, although it seemed to him he trod illimitable air; went down slowly on one knee and uplifted his rigid hands, clasping the substance he no longer felt. The ultimate action of his life was the yielding of the cup into the King’s hand.

As the King took and drank, the boy fell.

“Why, the lad has swooned…! some aqua vitæ!” exclaimed Rockhurst.

But Charles flung out his hand with his rare gesture of command:—

“Nay, my lord.—He is dead, or dying. Little Satans do not do their work by halves. He is dead or soon will be.—Odd’s fish!” added the King, after a moment’s frowning meditation, “when you lured that linnet, his sister, to sing for you in the Tower, Harry, you little thought her song was to have such an echo!”

Rockhurst stared for a moment horror-stricken—his glance roamed from the broken beaker to the cups on the table and thence to Enguerrand’s convulsed face. A glimmering of the truth began to dawn upon him; the mystery was dissolving before a tragic and dreadful light. Even in the midst of the King’s words he dropped on one knee to raise the prone figure. The livid head fell limply back over his arm. The King cast one look down and averted his eyes.

“Away with him!” he cried, in an explosion of nervous irritability. “Away with him! Call whomsoever you want to carry him, do what you list, get what physician you wish,—the lad’s dead, and ’tis the end of it! You understand, I’ll not hear another word about the matter.… Gadzooks! what a finish to a tedious day! Away with him, I command you, my Lord Rockhurst!”

Rockhurst, who had half risen at the King’s sharp tones, now bent once more down and gathered the inert form into his arms.

“Will your Majesty, then, open the door for me?” he said, in a low voice.

The King sprang up from his chair, dashing his napkin on one side, and flung open the door with an angry hand.

The slam of its closing echoed down the great corridors. So would Charles ever shut the unpleasant episode out from his life. Yet he had not quite succeeded: as he went moodily back to the table, his foot struck against the empty little phial. With precaution, placing the napkin between it and his palm, he held it to the light. It was wrought of Italian glass, with twisted lines of blue and red, not much larger than a filbert nut.

A vision swam before his eyes: Rockhurst’s face, upturned as he had but just now seen that of his French page; and, like it, livid in the hues of death.

“Little Satan! …” he said aloud.

It was the last time that the words were ever to cross his lips. He cast the phial out through the open window and heard the faint splintering crash echo from the flags below.

* * * * *

Rockhurst had taken but a few steps down the passage, when some inexplicable impression bade him pause and glance down at his sad burden.

The light from one of the wall sconces fell full on the boy’s face: a subtle change, that was scarcely so much a quiver as a composing of all the features, was passing over it, driving away the terrible pinched look of agony and restoring something of its youthful beauty. Then Enguerrand opened his eyes and stared up into the Lord Constable’s countenance. Rockhurst had never before met those eyes but that he had found hatred in them. At this supreme moment there was no hatred, only a kind of desolate wonder. Then, even as their gaze met, the soul that seemed to seek his was gone; the eyes wondered no more.

Rockhurst stood still, an intolerable pain at his heart. It was almost as if he held his own son’s dead body on his breast. The ring of the yeoman’s halbert, the tramp of his heavy foot, roused him from the revery. He strode forward a few steps more.

“Ho, Ashby,” he called, “I have need of thee!”

“Nay, in God’s mercy,” cried the old man, drawing near, “that is never the French lad!”

He laid the halbert against the wall, and hastened to relieve his captain from the burden. Then, as he felt one of the small hands, cold and limp:—

“Dead, and dead in very surety! Why, ’tis not an hour since he passed me, singing like a swallow on the wing, and hopping for all like a squirrel.”

* * * * *

Very serious was the face of the King’s physician, and pale his cheek, as he lifted himself suddenly from the examination of the corpse that had been laid on my Lord Constable’s bed, in the room by the gateway.

He turned hastily and, forgetting all decorum, pushed not only the yeoman, who was awaiting his orders, but my lord himself, from the chamber.

“We can do nothing—the boy is dead!”

Then he leaned over and breathed rather than spoke into Rockhurst’s ear the single word, “Plague.” Adding aloud, the while fumbling in his pocket for his pomander box:—

“One of those monstrous, sudden cases we are told of—but which I confess I have never seen! Merciful heavens … in Whitehall! Your lordship must submit instantly to fumigation. Aye, and yonder yeoman, too, who carried the body.” This between prolonged sniffs at the pierced lid of his pomander box. “Pray, my lord, inhale of this, deep—and you, too, fellow, after his lordship! And the burial must be early in the morn—poor lad! And, my lord, I beseech let it be in secret. Oh, we must hold our tongues about this, my Lord Constable! The sickness in Whitehall, and in his Majesty’s very apartment!… Not a word to his Majesty! The lad has died of a fit—a rush to the head. Tut, tut—the truth must be kept secret indeed!”

Rockhurst had listened with immovable countenance.

“Aye,” he said gravely, “it shall be kept secret.”

And, after inhaling the pomander box with due solemnity, he handed it to yeoman Ashby. But as soon as the physician, taking a hurried _congé_, had left the anteroom, he laid his hand on the old soldier’s shoulder:—

“Never fear, man, neither you nor I shall catch the sickness whereof this poor youth died, you can take your captain’s word for warrant. Nevertheless, I charge thee, speak no word, but, as the physician hath it—a rush to the head!”

* * * * *

Yet rumour ran abroad, as rumour will. And Sir Paul Farrant, hearing of his whilom friend’s tragic death, had never a doubt that it was in those haunts of Alsatia that he had first met the distemper—and himself started off to the pure airs of Farrant Chace, where he spent a dismal month watching for symptoms.

Over the grave, in Tothill Fields, where the passionate, revengeful heart lay now in quietude, a stone was erected by the Lord Constable’s order, which set forth the Vidame de Joncelle’s names and titles, and recorded he had died in the flower of his age, honoured by the King’s regard.

LADY CHILLINGBURGH’S LAST CARD-PARTY

LADY CHILLINGBURGH’S LAST CARD-PARTY