The White Plumes of Navarre Part 24

The blue midland sea, the clear blue of heaven just turning to opal, and the glint of mother-of-pearl coming up with the gloaming! A beach, not flattened out and ribbed by the pa.s.sage of daily tides, but with the sand and pebbles built steeply up by the las.h.i.+ng waves and the furious wind Euroclydon.

On different planes, far out at sea, were the sails of fis.h.i.+ng-boats, set this way and that, for all the world like b.u.t.terflies in the act of alighting. It was early spring--the spring of Roussillon, where it is never winter. Already the purple flowers of the wild Provencal mustard stood out from the white and yellow rocks, on which was perched a little town, flat-roofed and Moorish. Their leaves, grey-green like her own northern seas, of which she had all but lost the memory, drew Claire's attention. She bit absent-mindedly, and was immediately informed as to the species of the plant, without any previous knowledge of botany.

She kicked a strand of the long binding sea-gra.s.s, and then, after looking a moment resentfully at the wild mustard, she threw the plant pettishly away. Our once sedate Claire had begun to allow herself these ebullitions with the Professor. They annoyed the Abbe John so much--and it was practice. Also, they made the Professor spoil her. He had never watched from so near the sweet, semi-conscious coquetry of a pretty maid. So now he studied Claire like a newly-found fragment of Demosthenes, of which the Greek text has become a little fragmentary and wilful during the centuries.

"This will serve you better, if you must take to eating gra.s.s like an ox," said the Professor of Eloquence, reaching out his hand and plucking a sprig of sweet alison, which grew everywhere about.

Claire stretched out hers also and took the honey-scented plant, on which the tiny white flowers and the s.h.i.+ning fruit were to be found together.

"Buzz-uzz-uzz!" said half-a-dozen indignant bees, following the sprig.

For at that dead season of the year, sweet alison was almost their only joy.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Claire, letting it go. She loved none of the sting-accoutred tribe--unless it were the big, heavy, lurching b.u.mble-bees, which entered a room with such blundering pomp that you had always time to get out before they made up their mind about you.

The Professor watched her with some pride. For in the quiet of Rousillon Claire had quickly recovered her peace of mind, and with it the light in the eye and the rose-flush on the cheek.

But quite suddenly she put her hands to her face and began to sob.

If it had been the Abbe John, he might have divined the reason, but the Professor was not a man advised upon such matters.

"What is it?" he said, stupidly enough; "are you ill?"

"Oh, no--no!" sobbed Claire; "it is so good to be here. It is so peaceful. You are so good to me--too good--your mother--your brothers--what have I done to deserve it?"

"Very likely nothing," said the Professor, meaning to be consoling; "I have always noticed that those who deserve least, are commonly best served!"

"That is not at all a nice thing to say," cried Claire; "they did not teach you polite speeches at your school--or else you have forgotten them at your dull old Sorbonne. Do you call that eloquence?"

"I only profess eloquence," said Doctor Anatole, with due meekness; "it is not required by any statute that I should also practise it!"

"Well," said Claire, "I can do without your sweet speeches. I cannot expect a Sorbonnist to have the sugared comfits of a king's mignon!"

"Who speaks so loud of sugared comfits?" said a voice from the other side of the weather-stained rock, beneath which the Professor and Claire Agnew were sitting looking out over the sea.

A tall shepherd appeared, wrapped in the cloak of the true Pyrenean herdsman, brown ochre striped with red, and fringed with the blue woollen ta.s.sels which here took the place of the silver bells of Bearn.

A tiny s.h.i.+ver, not of distaste, but caused by some feeling of faint, instinctive aversion, ran through Claire.

Jean-aux-Choux did not notice. His eyes were far out on the sea, where, as in a vision, he seemed to see strange things. His countenance, once twisted and comical, now appeared somehow enn.o.bled. A stern glory, as of an angry ocean seen in the twilight, gloating over the destruction it has wrought during the day, illumined his face. His bent back seemed somehow straighter. And, though he still halted in his gait, he could take the hills in his stride with any man. And none could better "wear the sheep" or call an erring ewe to heel than Jean-aux-Choux. For in these semi-eastern lands the sheep still follow the shepherd and are known of him.

"Who speaks of sugared comfits?" demanded Jean-aux-Choux for the second time.

"I did," said Claire, a little tremulously. "I only wished I had some, Jean, to while away the time. For this law-learned Professor will say nothing but rude things to me!"

Jean looked from one to the other, to make sure that the girl was jesting. His brow cleared. Then again a gleam of fierce joy pa.s.sed momently over his face.

"_He_ had comfits in his hand in a silver box," he said, "jeweller's work of a cunning artificer. And he entered among us like the Lord of All. But it was given to me--to me, Jean-aux-Choux, to bring low the haughty head. 'Guise, the good Guise!' Ha! ha! But I sent him to Hattil, the place of an howling for sin--he that had thought to walk in Ahara, the sweet savouring meadows!"

"I hated Guise and all his works," said the Professor, looking at the ex-fool boldly, "yet will I never call his death aught but a murder most foul."

"It may be--it may be," said Jean-aux-Choux indifferently; "I did my Lord's work for an unworthy master. I would as soon have set the steel to the throat of Henry of Valois himself. He and that mother of his, now also gone to the Place of Howling to hob-n.o.b with her friend of Guise--they planned the killing. I did it. I give thanks! Michaiah--who is like the Lord? Jedaiah--the hand of the Lord hath wrought it.

Jehoash-Berak--the fire of the Lord falls in the thunderbolt! Amen!"

The Professor started to his feet.

"What is that you say? The Queen-Mother dead? And you----?"

He looked at the long dagger Jean-aux-Choux carried at his side, which, every time he s.h.i.+fted his cloak, drew the unwilling gaze of Claire Agnew like a fascination.

"The Mother of Witchcrafts is indeed dead," said Jean-aux-Choux. "But that the world owes not to me. The hand of G.o.d, and not mine, sent her to her own place. Yet I saw in a vision the Woman drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

Then he, who had once been called the King's fool, became, as it were, transported. His eyes, directed at something unseen across the blue and sleeping sea, were terrible to behold. Faint greyish flecks of foam appeared on his lips. He cast his cloak on the ground and trod upon it, crying, "Even thus is it to-day with Great Babylon, the mystery, the mother of the abominations of the earth."

After a moment's pause he took up his prophecy.

"There was One who came and bade me listen, and I gave him no heed, for he blessed when I would have cursed; he cried 'Preserve' when I cried 'Cut off'; he cried 'Plant' when I would have burned up, root and branch. But when I heard that Catherine of the Medici was indeed dead, I shouted for joy; I said, 'She was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold and precious stones and pearls! I saw her glory. But now Babylon the Great is fallen--is fallen. And they that wors.h.i.+pped her throw dust on their heads--all they that have thriven on the abundance of her pleasures. For in one hour her judgment is come!'"

Then, all in a moment, he came down from the height of his vision. The light of satisfied vengeance faded from his face.

"But I forget--I must go to the herd. It is my duty--till the G.o.d, whose arm of flesh I am, finds fitter work for me to do. Then will I do it. I care not whether the reward be heaven or h.e.l.l, so that the work be done.

The cripple and the fool is not like other men. He is not holden by human laws or codes of honour, nor by the l.u.s.t of land, nor wealth, nor power, nor the love of woman. He is free--free--free as Berak, the lightning of G.o.d is free--to strike where he wills--to fall where he is sent!"

The two watched him, and listened, marvelling.

And the Professor muttered to himself, "Before I lecture again, I must read that Genevan book of his. Our poor Vulgate is to that torrent as the waters of Siloah that flow softly!"

The voice of Jean-aux-Choux had ceased. That is, his lips moved without words. But presently he turned to Claire and said, almost in his old tones, "I am a fool. I fright you, that are but a child. I do great wrong. But now I will go to the flock. They await me. I am, you say, a careless shepherd to have left them so long. Not so! I have a dog in a thousand--Toah the dart. And, indeed, I myself am no hireling--no Iscariot. For your good cousin, Don Raphael Llorient, of Collioure, hath as yet paid me no wages--neither gold Ferdinand nor silver Philip of the Indies. A good day to you, Professor! Sleep in peace, little Claire Agnew! For the sake of one Francis, late my master, we will watch over you--even I, Berak the lightning, and Toah my dog!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE THREE SONS OF MADAME AMeLIE

They went back, keeping step together, tall Claire with hand fearlessly placed on the shoulder of her Professor, who straightened his bowed student-back at the light touch.

As he went he meditated deeply, and Claire waited for him to speak.

Treading lightly by his side, she smelled the honeysuckle scent of the sweet alison which she had carried idly away in her hand.

"If the Queen-Mother be dead," said the Professor, "that is one more stone out of the path of the Bearnais. The Valois loves a strong man to lean upon. For that reason he clings to D'Epernon, but some day he will find out that Epernon is only a man of cardboard. There is but one in France--or, at least, one with the gift of drawing other strong men about him."

"The Bearnais?" queried Claire, playing with the sweet alison; "I wonder where he has his camp now?"

She asked the question in a carelessly meditative way, and quite evidently without any reference to the fact that a certain John d'Albret (once called in jest the Abbe John) was the youngest full captain in that enthusiastic, though ill-paid array. But the Professor did not hear her question. His mind was set on great matters of policy, while Claire wondered whether the Abbe John looked handsome in his accoutrements of captain. Then she thought of the enemy trying to kill him, and it seemed bitterly wicked. That John d'Albret was at the same time earnestly endeavouring to kill as many as possible of the enemy did not seem to matter nearly so much.

"Yes," said the Professor, "Henry of Valois has nothing else for it. The Leaguers are worse than ever, buzzing like a cloud of hornets about his head. They hold Paris and half the cities of France. He must go to the King of Navarre, and that humbly withal!"