The Black Douglas Part 54

The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an unholy l.u.s.tre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles with the black. In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about, wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible baron.

The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not been wanting.

Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger, a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast. With a great cry he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in the depth of the forest.

Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye, was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the Castle of Machecoul.

So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode together all that day, sullen anger burning in their hearts. And one calling himself the servant of the Bishop of Nantes went about among them, and his words were as knives, sharp and bitter beyond belief.

And ever as he spoke the men turned them about till they faced Machecoul. Their lips moved like those of a Moslemite who says his prayers towards Mecca. And the words they uttered were indeed prayers of solemnest import.

With his usual devotion at such seasons, Gilles de Retz had attended service thrice that day in his Chapel of the Holy Innocents. His behaviour had been marked by intense devoutness. An excessive tenderness of conscience had characterised his confessions to Pere Blouyn, his spiritual director-in-ordinary. He confessed as his most flagrant sin that his thoughts were overmuch set on the vanities of the world, and that he had even sometimes been tempted of the devil to question the right of Holy Church herself to settle all questions according to the will of her priests and prelates.

Whereupon Pere Blouyn, with suave correctness of judgment, had pointed out wherein his master erred; but also cautioned him against that undue tenderness of conscience natural to one with his exalted position and high views of duty and life. Finally the marshal had received absolution.

In the late afternoon the Lord of Retz commanded the fire to be laid ready for lighting in his chamber aloft in the keep of Machecoul, and set himself down to listen to the singing of the choir, which, under the guidance of Precentor Renouf, rehea.r.s.ed for him the sweetest hymns recently written for the choir of the Holy Father at Rome. For there the marshal's choir-master had been trained, and with its leader he still kept up a correspondence upon kindred interests.

Gilles de Retz, as he sat under the late blooming roses in the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne of the autumn of western France, appeared to the casual eye one of the most n.o.ble seigneurs and the most enlightened in the world. He affected a costume already semiecclesiastic as a token of his ultimate intention to enter holy orders. It seemed indeed as if the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek the heavenly.

There, upon a chair set within the cloisters, in a place which the suns.h.i.+ne touched most lovingly and where it lingered longest, he sat, nodding his head to the sound of the sweet singing, and bowing low at each mention of the name of Jesus (as the custom is)--a still, meditative, almost saintly man. Upon the lap of his furred robe (for, after all, it was a suns.h.i.+ne with a certain shrewd wintriness in it) lay an illuminated copy of the Holy Gospels; and sometimes as he listened to the choir-boys singing, he glanced therein, and read of the little children to whom belongs the kingdom. Upon occasion he lifted the book also, and looked with pleasure at the pictured cherubs who cheered the way of the Master Jerusalemwards with strewn palm leaves and shouted hosannas.

And ever sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single voice--that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite sweetness the words of blessing:

"_Suffer the little children to come unto Me, And forbid them not; For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven._"

And as the boy's voice welled out, clear and thrilling as the song of an upward pulsing lark, the tears ran down the face of Gilles de Retz.

G.o.d knows why. Perhaps it was some glint of his own innocent childhood--some half-dimmed memory of his happily dead mother.

Perhaps--but enough. Gilles de Laval de Retz went up the turret stair to find Poitou and Gilles de Sille on guard on either side the portals which closed his chamber.

"Is all ready?" he asked, though the tears were scarcely dry on his cheeks.

They bowed before him to the ground.

"All is ready, lord and master," they said as with one voice.

"And Prelati?"

"He is in waiting."

"And La Meffraye," he went on, "has she arrived?"

"La Meffraye has arrived," they said; "all goes fortunately."

"Good!" said Gilles de Retz, and shedding his furred monkish cloak carelessly from off his shoulders, he went within.

Poitou and Gilles de Sille both reached to catch the mantle ere it fell. As they did so their hands met and touched. And at the meeting of each other's flesh they started and drew apart. Their eyes encountered furtively and were instantly withdrawn. Then, having hung up the cloak, with pallid countenances and lips white and tremulous, they slowly followed the marshal within.

"Sybilla de Thouars, as you are in my power, so I bid you work my will!"

It was the deep, stern voice of the Marshal de Retz which spoke. The Lady Sybilla lay back in a great chair with her eyes closed, breathing slowly and gently through her parted lips. Messire Gilles stood before her with his hands joined palm to palm and his white fingertips almost touching the girl's brow.

"Work my will and tell me what you see!"

Her hands were clasped under a light silken ap.r.o.n which she wore descending from her neck and caught in a loose loop behind her gown.

The fingers were firmly netted one over the other and clutched between them was a golden crucifix.

The girl was praying, as one prays who dares not speak.

"O G.o.d, who didst hang on this cross--keep now my soul. Condemn it afterwards, but help me to keep it this night. Deliver me--oh, deliver from the power of this man. Help me to lie. By Thy Son's blood, help me to lie well this night."

"Where are the three men from the land of the Scots? Tell me what you see. Tell me all," the marshal commanded, still standing before her in the same posture.

Then the voice of the Lady Sybilla began to speak, low and even, and with that strange halt at the end of the sentences. The Lord of Retz nodded, well pleased when he heard the sound. It was the voice of the seeress. Oftentimes he had heard it before, and it had never deceived him.

"I see a boat on a stormy sea," she said; "there are three men in it.

One is great of stature and very strong. The others are young men.

They are trying to furl the sail. A gust strikes them. The boat heels and goes over. I see them struggling in the pit of waters. There are cliffs white and crumbling above them. They are calling for help as they cling to the boat. Now there is but one of them left. I see him trying to climb up the slippery rocks. He falls back each time. He is weary with much buffeting. The waves break about him and suck him under. Now I do not see the men any more, but I can hear the broken mast of the boat knocking hollow and dull against the rocks. Some few shreds of the sail are wrapped about it. But the three men are gone."

She ceased suddenly. Her lips stopped their curiously detached utterance.

But under her breath and deep in her soul Sybilla de Thouars was still praying as before. And this which follows was her prayer:

"O G.o.d, his devil is surely departed from him. I thank thee, G.o.d of truth, for helping me to lie."

"It is well," said Gilles de Retz, standing erect with a satisfied air. "All is well. The three Scots who sought my life are gone to their destruction. Now, Sybilla de Thouars, I bid you look upon John, Duke of Brittany. Tell me what he does and says."

The level, impa.s.sive, detached voice began again. The hands clasped the cross of gold more closely under the silk ap.r.o.n.

"I see a room done about with silver scallop sh.e.l.ls and white-painted ermines. I see a fair, cunning-faced, soft man. Behind him stands one tall, spare, haggard--"

"Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany--one that hates me," said de Retz, grimly between his teeth. "I will meet my fingers about his dog's throat yet. What of him?"

The Lady Sybilla, without a quiver of her shut eyelids took up the cue.

"He hath his finger on a parchment. He strives to point out something to the fair-haired man, but that other shakes his head and will not agree--"

The marshal suddenly grew intent, and even excited.

"Look closer, Sybilla--look closer. Can you not read that which is written on the parchment? I bid you, by all my power, to read it."

Then the countenance of the Lady Sybilla was altered. Striving and blank failure were alternately expressed upon it.

"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" she cried.

"By my power, I bid you. By that which I will make you suffer if you fail me, I command you!" cried Gilles de Retz, bending himself towards her and pressing his fingers against her brow so that the points dented her skin.