Chapter XXXI: "The very pattern of a king."

The next world appeared to be strangely like this. I found myself lying on a straw bed in a little low attic, my head resting comfortably on some one's shoulder, while some one else poured wine down my gullet. Presently I discovered that Maître Jacques's was the ministering hand, M. Étienne's the shoulder. After all, this was not heaven, but still Paris.

I had no desire to speak so long as the flow of old Jacques's best Burgundy continued; but when he saw my eyes wide open, he stopped, and I said, my voice, to my surprise, very faint and quavery:

"What happened?"

"Dear, brave lad! You fainted!"

My lord's voice was as unsteady as mine.

"But the ladder?" I murmured.

"The ladder broke. But you had hold beyond the break. You hung on till we seized you. And then you swooned."

"What a baby!" I said, getting to my feet. "But the men, monsieur? Peyrot?"

"I think we've seen the last of those worthies. They took to their heels when you escaped them."

"But, monsieur, they've gone to inform! You'll be taken for killing Lucas."

"I doubt it. Themselves smell too strong of blood to dare bruit the matter. Natheless, if you can walk now, we'll make good time to the gate."

But for all his haste, he would not start till I had had some bread and soup down in the kitchen.

"We must take good care of you, boy Félix," he said. "For where the St. Quentins would be without you, I tremble to think."

I set out a new man. In three steps, it seemed to me, we had reached the city gate, to find the way blocked by a company of twenty or thirty horse, the St. Quentin uniform flaunting gay in the sun. The nearest trooper set up a shout at sight of us, when Vigo, coming out suddenly from behind a nag, took M. le Comte in his big embrace. He released him immediately, looking immensely startled at his own demonstration.

M. Étienne laughed out at him.

"Be more careful, I beg you, Vigo! You will make me imagine myself of some importance."

"I thought you swallowed up," Vigo growled. "You had been here--I couldn't get a trace of you."

"I was killing Lucas."

"Sacré! He's dead?"

"Dead."

"That's the best morning's work ever you did, M. Étienne."

"Have you horse for us, Vigo?"

"Of course. Some of the men will walk. I suppose we're leaving Paris to buy you out of the Bastille?"

"Not worth it, eh, Vigo?"

"Yes," said Vigo, gravely--"yes, M. Étienne. You are worth it."

Vigo's troop was but slow-moving, as some of the horses carried double, some were loaded with chattels. M. Étienne and I, on the duke's blood-chargers, soon left the cavalcade behind us. Before I knew it, we were halted at the outpost of the camp. My lord gave his name.

"To be sure!" cried the sentry. "We've orders about you. You dine with the king, M. de Mar."

"Mordieu! I do?"

"You do. Orders are to take you to him out of hand. Captain!"

The officer lounged out of the tavern door.

"Captain, M. de Mar."

"Oh, aye!" cried the captain, coming forward with brisk interest. "M. de Mar, you're the child of luck. You dine with the king."

"I am the child of bewilderment, captain."

"And you've not too much time to recover from it, M. le Comte. You are to go straight to the king."

"I may go to M. de St. Quentin's lodgings first?"

"No, monsieur; straight to the king."

"What! in my shirt?"

"I can't help it, monsieur," the captain laughed. "I suppose the king did not guess you were coming in your shirt. Anyway, his order was to fetch you direct. And direct you go. But never care. Our king's no stickler for toggery. He's known what it is himself to lack for a coat."

"I might wash my face, then."

"Certainly. No harm in that."

So M. Étienne went into the tournebride and washed his face. And that was all the toilet he made for audience with the greatest king in the world.

"You'll ride to Monsieur's," he commanded me, when the captain answered:

"No; he goes with you, monsieur, if he's the boy Choux, Troux, whatever it is."

"Broux--Félix Broux!" I cried, a-quiver.

"That's it. You go to the king, too. Another luck-child."

I thought so indeed. We followed the sentry through the town in a waking dream, content to let him do with us as he would. He did the talking, explained to the grandees in the king's hall our names and errand. One of them led us up the stairs and knocked at a closed door.

"Enter!"

It was Henry's own voice. I pinched monsieur's hand to tell him. Our guide opened the door a crack.

"M. de Mar, Sire, and his servant."

"Good, La Force. Let them enter."

M. La Force fairly pushed us over the sill, so abashed were we, and shut the door upon us.

The king was alone. But before this simple gentleman in the rusty black, M. Étienne caught his breath as he had not done before a court in full pomp. He had seen courts, but he had never seen the first soldier of Europe. He advanced three steps into the room, and forgot to kneel, forgot to lower his gaze in the presence, but merely stared wide-eyed at majesty, as majesty stared at him. Thus they stood surveying each other from top to toe in the frankest curiosity, till at length the king spoke:

"M. de Mar, you look less like a carpet-knight than I expected."

M. Étienne came to himself, to kneel at once.

"Sire, I blush for my looks. But your zealous soldiers would not let me from their clutches. I am just come from killing Paul de Lorraine."

"What! the spy Lucas?"

"Himself. And when I left the spot by way of the window in some haste, I was not expecting this honour, Sire."

"Nor do I think you deserve it, ventre-saint-gris!" the king cried. "Though you come hatless and coat-less to-day, you have been a long time on the road, M. de Mar."

"Aye, Sire."

"You might as well have stayed away as come at this hour. Marry, all's over! Go hang yourself, my breathless follower! We have fought all our great battles, and you were not there!"

Scarlet under the lash, M. Étienne, kneeling, bent his eyes on the ground. He was silent, but as the king spoke not, he felt it incumbent to stammer something:

"That is my life's misfortune, Sire."

"Misfortune, sirrah? Misfortune you call it? Let me hear you say fault."

"I dare not, Sire," M. Étienne murmured. "It was of course your Majesty's fault. We cannot serve heretics, we St. Quentins."

"Ventre-saint-gris! You think well of yourself, young Mar."

"I must, Sire, when your Majesty invites me to dinner."

The king burst into laughter, and his temper, which I believe was all a play, vanished to the winds.

"Pardieu! you're a glib fellow, Mar. But I didn't invite you to dinner for your own sake, little as you can imagine it. So you would have joined my flag four years ago, had I not been a stinking heretic?"

"Aye, Sire, I needs must have. Therefore am I everlastingly beholden to your Majesty for remaining so long a Huguenot."

"How now, cockerel?"

M. Étienne faltered a moment. He was not burdened by shyness, but before the king's sharp glance he underwent a cold terror lest he had been too free with his tongue. However, there was naught to do but go on.

"Sire, had I fought under your banner like a man, at Dieppe and Arques and Ivry, M. de Mayenne had never dreamed of marrying his ward to me. I had never known her."

"The loveliest demoiselle I ever saw!" the king cried. "I shall marry her to one of my staunchest supporters."

The smile was washed from M. Étienne's lips. He turned as white as linen. In one moment his youth seemed to go from him. The king, unnoting, picked a parchment off the table.

"To one of my bravest captains. Here's his commission, my lad."

M. Étienne stared up from the writing into the king's laughing face.

"I, Sire? I?"

"You, Mar, you. You are my staunch supporter, perhaps?"

"Your horse-boy, an you ask it, Sire!"

He pressed his lips to the king's hand, great, helpless tears dripping down upon it.

"If I ever desert you, I am a dog, Sire! But the fighting is not all done. I will capture you a flag yet."

"Perhaps. I much fear me there's life in Mayenne still."

M. Étienne, not venturing to rise, yet lifted beseeching eyes to the king's.

"What! you want to get away from me, ventre-saint-gris!"

My lord, who wanted precisely that, had no choice but to protest that nothing was farther from his thoughts.

"Stuff!" the king exclaimed. "You're in a sweat to be gone, you unmannerly churl! You, a raw, untried boy, are invited to dine with the king, and your one itch is to escape the tedium!"

"Sire--"

"Peace! You are guilty, sirrah. Take your punishment!"

He darted across the room, and throwing open an inner door, called gently, "Mademoiselle!"

"Yes, Sire," she answered, coming to the threshold.

The peasant lass was gone forever. The great lady, regal in satins, stood before us. She bent on the king a little, eager, questioning glance; then she caught sight of her lover. Faith, had the sun gone out, the room would have been brilliant with the light of her face.

M. Étienne sprang up and toward her. And she, pushing by the king as if he had been the door-post, went to him. They stood before each other, neither touching nor speaking, but only looking one at the other like two blind folk by a heavenly miracle restored to sight.

"How now, children? Am I not a model monarch? Do you swear by me forever? Do you vouch me the very pattern of a king?"

Answer he got none. They heard nothing, knew nothing, but each other. The slighted king chuckled and, beckoning me, withdrew to his cabinet.

So here an end. For if Henry of France leave them, you and I may not stay.