The Black Douglas Part 44

"I will go with you on two conditions," he said: "you shall not mention my purpose to the others, and when we escape, I must put a bandage over your eyes till we are half a dozen streets away."

"Why, done with you--after all you are a right gamesome c.o.c.k, my Irelander," cried Gilles, whom the conditions pleased even better than Laurence's promise to accompany him.

Then, lending the prisoner his viol wherewith to amuse himself and locking the door, Laurence made an excuse to go to the kitchen, where he laughed low to himself, chuckling in his joy as he deftly handled the saucepans.

"Aha, Master Sholto, you are the captain of the guard and a knight, forsooth, and I am but poor clerk Laurence--as you have ofttimes reminded me. But I will show you a s.h.i.+ft worth two of watching outside the door of the marshal's hotel for tidings of the maids. I will go where the marshal goes, and see all he sees. And then, when the time comes, why, I will rescue them single-handed and thereafter make up my mind which of them I shall marry, whether Sholto's sweetheart or the Fair Maid of Galloway herself."

Thus headlong Laurence communed with himself, not knowing what he said nor to what terrible adventure he was committing himself.

But Gilles de Sille of the house of the Marshal de Retz, being left to himself in the half darkness of the garret, took up the viol and sang a curious air like that with which the charmer wiles his snakes to him, and at the end of every verse, he also laughed low to himself.

CHAPTER XLV

THE BOASTING OF GILLES DE SILLe

But, as fate would have it, it was not in the Hotel de p.o.r.nic nor yet in the city of Paris that Laurence O'Halloran was destined to enter the service of the most mighty Marshal de Retz.

Not till three days after his converse with the prisoner did Laurence find an opportunity of escaping from the house in the street of the Ursulines. Sholto and his father meantime kept their watch upon the mansion of the enemy, turn and turn about; but without discovering anything pertinent to their purpose, or giving Laurence a chance to get clear off with Gilles de Sille. The Lord James had also frequently adventured forth, as he declared, in order to spy out the land, though it is somewhat sad to relate that this espionage conducted itself in regions which gave more opportunities for investigating the peculiar delights of Paris than of discovering the whereabouts of Maud Lindesay and his cousin, the Fair Maid of Galloway.

The head of Gilles de Sille was still swathed in bandages when, with an additional swaddling of disguise across his eyes, he and Laurence, that truant scion of the house of O'Halloran, stole out into the night. A frosty chill had descended with the darkness, and a pale, dank mist from the marshes of the Seine made the pair s.h.i.+ver as arm in arm they ventured carefully forth.

Laurence was doing a foolish, even a wicked, thing in thus, without warning, deserting his companions. But he was just at the age when it is the habit of youth to deceive themselves with the thought that a shred of good intent covers a world of heedless folly.

The fugitives found the Hotel de p.o.r.nic practically deserted. They approached it cautiously from the back, lest they should run into the arms of any of the numerous enemies of its terrible lord, who, though not abhorred in Paris as in most other places which he favoured with his visits, had yet little love spent upon him even there.

The custodian in the stone cell by the gate came yawning out to the bars at the sound of Gilles de Sille's knocking, and after a growl of disfavour admitted the youth and his companion.

"What, gone--my master gone!" cried Gilles, striking his hand on his thigh with an astounded air, "impossible!"

"It was, indeed, a thing particularly unthoughtful and discourteous of my Lord de Retz, Marshal of France and Chamberlain of the King, to undertake a journey without consulting you," replied the man, who considered irony his strong point, but feebly concealing his pleasure at the favourite's discomfiture; "we all know upon what terms your honourable self is with my lord. But you must not blame him, for he waited whole twenty-four hours for news of you. It was reported that you were set upon by four giants, and that your bones, crushed like a filbert, had been discovered in the horse pond at the back of the Convent of the Virgins of Complaisance."

Gilles de Sille looked as if he could very well have murdered the speaker on the spot. His favour with his lord was evidently not a thing of repute in his master's household. So much was clear to Laurence, who, for the first time, began to have fears as to his own reception, having such an unpopular person as voucher and introducer.

"If you do not keep a civil tongue in your head, sirrah Labord,"--the youth hissed the words through his clenched teeth,--"I will have your throat cut."

"Ah, I am too old," said the man, boldly; "besides, this is Paris, and I have been twenty years concierge to his Grace the Duke of Orleans. I and my wife have his secrets even as you, most n.o.ble Sire de Sille, possess those of my new master. You, or he either, by G.o.d's grace, will think twice before cutting my throat. Moreover, you will be good enough at this point to state your business or get to bed. For I am off to mine. I serve my master, but I am not compelled to spend the night parleying with his lacqueys."

Now the concierges of Paris are very free and independent personages, and their tongues are accustomed to wag freely and to some purpose in their heads.

"Whither has my master gone?" asked de Sille, curbing his wrath in order to get an answer.

"He _said_ that he went to Tiffauges. Whether that be true, you have better means of knowing than I."

The swarthy youth turned to Laurence.

"How much money have you, Master O'Halloran? I have spent all of mine, and this city swine will not lend me a single sou for my expenses. We must to the stables and follow the Sieur de Retz forthwith to Brittany."

"I have ten golden angels which the prior of the convent gave me at my departure," said Laurence, with some pride.

His companion nodded approvingly.

"So much will see us through--that is, with care. Give them here to me," he added after a moment's thought; "I will pay them out with more economy, being of the country through which we pa.s.s."

But Laurence, though sufficiently headlong and reckless, had not been born a Scot for naught.

"Wait till there is necessity," he replied cautiously, "and the angels shall not be lacking. Till then they are quite safe with me. For security I carry them in a secret place ill to be gotten at hastily."

Gilles de Sille turned away with some movement of impatience, yet without saying another word upon the subject.

"To the stables," he said; then turning to the concierge he added, "I suppose we can have horses to ride after my lord?"

"So far as I am concerned," growled Labord, "you can have all the horses you want--and break your necks off each one of them if you will. It will save some good hemp and hangman's hire. Such devil's dogs as you two be bear your dooms ready written on your faces."

And this saying nettled our Laurence, who prided himself no little on an allure blonde and gallant.

But Gilles de Sille cared no whit for the servitor's sneers, so long as they got horses between their knees and escaped out of Paris that night. In an hour they were ready to start, and Laurence had expended one of his gold angels on the provend for the journey, which his companion and he stored in their saddle-bags.

And in this manner, like an idle lad who for mischief puts body and soul in peril, went forth Laurence MacKim to take up service with the redoubtable Messire Gilles de Laval, Sieur de Retz, High Chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, Marshal of France, and lately companion-in-arms of the martyred Maid of Orleans.

Now, before he went forth from the street of the Ursulines, he had laid a sealed letter on the bed of his brother, which ran thus: "Ha, Sir Sholto MacKim, while you stand about in the rain and s.h.i.+ver under your cloak, I am off to find out the mystery. When I have done all without a.s.sistance from the wise Sir Sholto, I will return. But not before. Fare your knights.h.i.+p well."

Laurence and Gilles de Sille rode out of Paris by the Versailles road, and the latter insisted on silence till they had pa.s.sed the forest of St. Cyr, which was at that time exceedingly dangerous for hors.e.m.e.n not travelling in large companies. Once they were fairly on the road to Chartres, however, and clear of the valley of the Seine and its tangled boscage of trees, Gilles relaxed sufficiently to break a bottle of wine to the success of their journey and to the new service and duty upon which Laurence was to enter at the end of it.

Having proposed this toast, he handed the b.u.mper first to Laurence, who, barely tasting the excellent Poitevin vintage, handed the leathern bottle back to de Sille. That sallow youth immediately, without giving his companion a second chance, proceeded to quaff the entire contents of the pigskin.

Then as the stiff brew penetrated downwards, it was not long before the favourite of the marshal began to wax full of vanity and swelling words.

"I tell you what it is," he said, "there would be trembling in the heart of a very great man when the nine cravens returned without me.

For I am no shaveling ignoramus, but a gentleman of birth; aye, and one who, though poor, is a near cousin of the marshal himself. I warrant the rascals who ran away would smart right soundly for leaving me behind. For Gilles de Sille is no simpleton. He knows more than is written down in the catechism of Holy Church. None can touch my favour with my lord, no matter what they testify against me. For me I have only to ask and have. That is why I take such pride in bringing you to my Lord of Retz. I know that he will give you a post about his person, and if you are not a simple fool you may go very far. For my master is a friend of the King and, what is better, of Louis the Dauphin. He gat the King back a whole province--a dukedom so they say, from the hands of some Scots fool that had it off his grandfather for deeds done in the ancient wars. And in return the King will protect my master against all his enemies. Do I not speak the truth?"

Laurence hoped that he did, but liked not the veiled hints and insinuations of some surprising secret in the life of the marshal, possessed by his dear cousin and well-beloved servant Gilles de Sille.

With an ever loosening tongue the favourite went on:

"A great soldier is our master--none greater, not even Dunois himself.

Why, he rode into Orleans at the right hand of the Maid. None in all the army was so great with her as he. I tell you, Charles himself liked it not, and that was the beginning of all the bother of talk about my lord--ignorant gabble of the countryside I call it. Lord, if they only knew what I know, then, indeed--but enough. Marshal Gilles is a mighty scholar as well, and hath Henriet the clerk--a weak, bleating a.s.s that will some day blab if my master permit me not to slice his gizzard in time--he hath him up to read aloud Latin by the mile, all out of the books called Suetonius and Tacitus--such high-flavoured tales and full of--well, of things such as my master loves."

So ran Gilles de Sille on as the miles fled back behind their horses'

heels and the towers of Chartres rose grey and solemn through the morning mists before the travellers.

CHAPTER XLVI