Vayenne

The cry, however, had gone farther than the street of the great clock. There was a spirit of excitement abroad in Vayenne to-night consequent on the death of the Duke, and the closing of the shops had only sent more men into the taverns and streets to talk and perchance to plot. The cry of "Spy" had leaped from lip to lip far beyond the man who had been the cause of it, and now as the excited crowd poured out of the street into a wide, open square, and Herrick was about to make a last struggle for his life, there came a sharp word of command, a ring of steel drawn from the scabbard, and the crowd halted in confusion before a body of soldiers.

"What have we here?" said a voice which sounded familiar to Herrick.

"A spy, captain," shouted a dozen voices.

"You may easily call a man that, but the proof?"

There was silence, each man expecting his neighbor to speak.

"You may well ask for the proof, since there is none," said Herrick. "Some scoundrels – "

"Ay, and the accusation is as easily denied," interrupted the soldier, turning toward Herrick. "There was never a spy yet but had plenty of lies ready to his tongue."

"I am a stranger in Vayenne – shall I seek justice in it in vain, Captain Lamasle?" For Herrick recognized him as the soldier who had been with the priest at the Croix Verte that evening.

An expression of astonishment crossed the captain's face at being known by this stranger. It was evident that he did not recognize Herrick, but perhaps he remembered what company he had been in not long since and what had been said over the wine.

"Being so ready with my name is not much in your favor," he said; "you'll get justice, I warrant." And then in obedience to a quick command, Herrick found himself a prisoner amongst soldiers instead of in the midst of a crowd. It would be useless now to attempt to escape, and at the word of command he marched forward.

Until this moment Herrick had taken little note of his surroundings. Now a sudden rush of music in the air above made him look around him. The square was of great size, misty and ghost-like in the pale, uncertain moonlight, but, in front of him there loomed a great gateway flanked by towers, and behind and on higher ground, there were other towers and frowning walls. It was the castle, and near it rose the stately pile of a great church, its spire piercing far into the night.

As they approached the castle the great gates were flung open, and Herrick saw that the court-yard within was full of men hurrying to and fro. Horses' hoofs impatiently beat the stones, which were rough and uneven. There was much jingling of harness and ring of spur and steel. Lights shone in narrow doorways, and there was the flame of a torch here and there. All was hurry and excitement; and in some silent chamber near, the Duke lay dead. Herrick remembered this, found himself speculating upon it, yet even as he passed through the gate he hardly felt strange in playing a part in this drama.

The word "Spy" seemed to have run before him even here. That grim gateway had not kept it out. Men paused a moment to look at him: some were silent, some uttered a sound of hatred and contempt, but all seemed convinced that the accusation was a just one.

The soldiers halted by the wall some twenty feet in height. Herrick concluded that there was a terrace or garden above, because several persons, women and pages among them, were leaning over the wall looking into the court-yard below. A flight of stone steps, placed sideways to the wall, led down from this terrace, and at the foot of these steps was a woman mounted upon a beautiful bay mare, which pawed the ground, impatient to be gone. At a little distance a group of horsemen waited for her signal, which she was in the act of giving when the soldiers, with their prisoner in their midst, came to a halt not a dozen yards from her. The light from two or three torches held by servants who stood on the lower steps lit up her face, and Herrick saw again the woman who had ridden past the diligence a few hours ago, the woman who was destined to play so great a part in his life.

Captain Lemasle stepped to her side and saluted.

"Are you not to ride with us?" she asked. "We are waiting."

"Pardon, mademoiselle. I have just been rescuing a spy. The crowd had caught him, and it would have gone hard with him had we not taken him."

"If he is a spy, would that have mattered?" she said, loud enough for Herrick to hear.

"There is justice in proving a man guilty before he is hanged," Lemasle answered.

"Since when have you been so fastidious? I have heard other things of Gaspard Lemasle. Let me look at this spy."

"I seem better known than I imagined," the soldier muttered as he stood aside.

She rode toward Herrick, the men about him falling back, until she was close upon him.

"Look up," she commanded, "and let me see the face of a spy."

"Not of a spy, mademoiselle, but of an honest man," he answered, looking her straight in the eyes.

"Spy, spy," she contradicted sharply, "or what do you in Vayenne at such a time as this?"

"I am a traveller."

"So are they all," she cried. "There is a guest-room within these walls for you. Vayenne knows how to welcome such travellers. Ah! I could honor an enemy, but a spy – " And there was such utter contempt in her face that Herrick could find no words to answer her.

As she tightened her reins, her riding whip slipped from her fingers and fell at his feet, and before any one could prevent him he had shaken the loosened cord from his wrists, and had stooped and picked it up. In an instant half a dozen soldiers sprang forward to prevent his attacking her. She did not flinch, but waving them back, held out her hand for the whip.

"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Herrick. "At least you have generosity enough to know that I am incapable of such a thing as that."

She looked at him for an instant as she took the whip, a new interest in her eyes, and a slight lowering of her proud head thanked him. Then she turned the mare round sharply.

"Captain Lemasle, I am ready," she said, and as the soldiers closed round Herrick again, she rode out through the grim gateway, followed by the troop of horsemen.

CHAPTER III

THE DWARF OF ST. ETIENNE

Along dark stone passages, through many a doorway, and across two or three rough court-yards, half a dozen soldiers conducted Herrick to his "guest-room." The woman's pleasantry had caught their fancy, and they laughed boisterously as they went, hoping, perhaps, to put fear into the heart of their prisoner.

They halted before a low door, which one man unlocked with a great key. The immense thickness of the wall formed a narrow passage, at the end of which some steps descended into a semicircular cell of no great size, but of considerable height.

"There's straw for a bed," said the jailer, pointing to a corner, "though how it came here I don't understand, and you've got heaven's light itself for a candle." And he nodded toward a patch of moonlight. "There are honest soldiers who are worse lodged, I warrant."

"It ill becomes a guest to complain of his treatment," Herrick answered.

"Ay; that idea of a guest-room was smartly thought of," the man returned, "but maybe you hardly see the full humor of it. This is the South Tower, and it's usually the last lodging a man needs this side the grave."

"Is that so?" And Herrick's attitude had interest in it, but little personal concern.

"Yes; and it's a short walk from here to the last yard we crossed. It usually happens there." And the jailer made a suggestive downward sweep with his arm.

"Axe or sword?" asked Herrick.

"Sword. Unless they decide to make an especial example in your case, then they're likely to hang you over the great gateway."

"Am I sufficiently important for that, think you?"

"I've known a dead sparrow on a string scare away much finer birds," the jailer answered; "but at any rate you're no white-livered man, and I shouldn't grieve to see you cheat both sword and rope."

"Thanks for your good will," said Herrick. "Who knows, I may live to speak a comforting word to you. I will be honest with you, I had not appreciated the full extent of the lady's humor."

With something like a salute, deference to the prisoner's courage, the jailer departed, and the key grated harshly in the lock as the bolts shot home.

High up near the roof there was a deep-set window through which the moonlight came. The tower could not be shut in by high walls, therefore, and probably was one of the outer towers of the castle. From that window possibly a prisoner might look into a free world, reach it, perhaps, if age had worn the bars loose in their stone sockets. A moment later Herrick felt certain that only this single wall held him from freedom, for the music of the carillon burst upon his ears. His fancy made the moonbeams the path along which the music travelled. But the window was unattainable. The rounded walls were almost as smooth as if the surface had been polished, and the cell was bare of everything but the heap of straw in the comer.

"My first night in Vayenne," he muttered, and some of the bravery with which he had addressed the jailer was wanting. The moonlight was upon his face as he spoke, a serious face just now, although neither hopelessness nor despair was in it. It could hardly be called a handsome face, yet it was one to remember. They were good, steady eyes, and if the nose and mouth were not an artist's ideals of beauty, in the whole face the artist would have found attraction. It was strong, forceful, fashioned in an uncommon mould; it was a face apart rather than one of a type, a strong family possession which to strangers had often marked him for a Herrick.

"My first night in Vayenne," he repeated as he began to pace his narrow cell slowly. How long ago it seemed since he had first seen the city from the brow of the hills. How much had happened in the few short hours since then, and yet one incident stood out more clearly than all the rest, the woman leaning from her horse to look into the face of a spy. Even now her contempt hurt him. It was hateful to appear mean in her eyes. All else that had happened to him seemed of little account beside this. The moment his eyes had rested upon her there had sprung a desire in his soul to serve her. In that service he felt himself capable of much, yet she despised him. A little touch of sympathy had shown in her face for a moment when he handed her the whip, but it had no power to obliterate the contempt. That was her true feeling toward him, the other was but the passing pity which a woman may have even for a coward.

The carillon had sounded several times, and the direction of the moon ray had changed, leaving the floor of the cell in darkness; but buried in thought Herrick took no notice of the little rushes of music, nor was he conscious of the deepening gloom around him until a sudden shadow seemed to flit through the chamber, and a new stealthy sound startled him. Instinctively he drew back to the wall, that whatever enemy might be near should have to face him and not be able to take him unawares. Once to-night already he had been seized from behind.

Standing on the outside ledge of the window, holding on to the bars and peering into the cell, was a figure that might well startle the bravest. The opening could not be more than four feet in height, yet it was sufficient to allow this figure to stand upright. Head, feet, and hands were at least normal in size, those of a full-grown and powerful man, the body was that of a child, though its curiously twisted form might have abnormal strength in it. His hair was long, and a thick, stubbly beard and whiskers completely surrounded his face. He was ugly in the extreme, and even Herrick was pleased to think that solid bars were between them.

For full five minutes the dwarf stood there, uttering no sound, but moving his head from side to side, trying to pierce the darkness, and once or twice he leant backward at arm's length to look down on the outside below him. Then he took hold of one bar with both hands, and, lifting it out of its socket, laid it carefully along the window-ledge. From the breast of the loose smock-like garment he wore he took a length of rope, knotted one end round one of the bars, and let the other end fall into the cell. For a moment he waited and listened; then, with the agility of a gorilla, he swung himself down, and stood on the floor of the cell, the rope still in his hand, as though he were prepared to spring upward to safety again at the first sign of danger.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" said Herrick suddenly.

The dwarf turned quickly toward him.

"Hush! It's only friend Jean."

"I have no such friend."

"You do not know it, but yes, from this moment you have. See here, my knife; watch, I fling it across the floor! Take it, it is for your protection – to show my good faith. I have no other weapon. Now, let's come close and look at each other."

The knife, a formidable blade, came skimming across the stone flags to Herrick's feet. He picked it up, and walked into the centre of the cell to meet his strange visitor.

"You must bend down to let me be sure that you are the man," said the dwarf.

"You have seen me before, then?"

"To-night when she rode across the court-yard to look at you. Ah, yes, you are the man. You were so quiet I thought they had put you elsewhere. Did I frighten you?"

"Well, you startled me, friend Jean."

The dwarf laughed a little, low chuckle, and, silently clapping his hands, stood on one foot and scratched the calf of his leg with the other.

"Ah! So I startled you, friend Spy."

"Stop! Not that word."

"I must needs call you by some name. Give me another."

"Roger Herrick."

"Friend Roger, good. It comes to my tongue easily. Let's sit, and I'll tell you who I am." And doubling his legs under him he sank cross-legged onto the floor.

"I will lean by the wall, Jean, I find it easier," said Herrick.

"Ah, there are compensations, after all, for a man like me. To know Vayenne is to know me; you can't help it. They call me an innocent; you know what that means?"

"Yes."

"But not all it means, I warrant," chuckled the dwarf. "I get pity; I am not supposed to do things like other men. Who cares where I go? In the castle, in the church, in a house where there's feasting – anywhere – I don't count. Who cares if I listen? It's only Jean; in at one ear, out at the other. No one looks to me for work, they'd sooner pay me for playing the fool, and I let 'em, I let 'em." And somewhere in his strange, loose garments he made the coins jingle. "So I go in and out as I will. If I curled up to sleep on the rug at the Duke's door they'd hardly trouble to disturb me, I count for such a little. Generally I sleep in the church."

"In the church?"

"Ay; in the porch. They call me the dwarf of St. Etienne. Listen! there's its music." And he remained silent with uplifted finger until the ripple of the carillon had died away into the night. "I'm a little fellow to have so large a church to myself, as I often do at nights; and, friend Roger, I see things in St. Etienne when the moonlight sends faint, colored beams through the painted windows. There are legends and superstitions about St. Etienne, and people are superstitious about me, too. They believe I know things, and so I do, but not of the sort they fancy."

A strange little madman, Herrick thought, yet one with a method surely, as the unbarred window showed.

"An innocent, that's what they call me," the dwarf went on, as though he answered his companion's thought, "and though I am no more one than you are, it suits my purpose. My wisdom would get any other man into trouble."

"That loose bar, for instance," said Herrick, pointing to the window.

"Yes; but I never thought of the use I should one day put it to. It is well to have more than one hole to creep into, and few would expect to find a man lodging in the South Tower of his own free will."

"I hear it has an evil reputation," said Herrick.

"Ay; the grave's anteroom. So I chose it as a hiding-place. There are times when I like to sleep here, to be alone and think of all I hear and see. I was many nights loosening that bar."

"And why have you come to-night – to sleep here?"

"No; to plot with friend Roger," the dwarf answered promptly. "The Duke died to-night; you know that? Out of his death will come trouble for many – for the woman you saw in the court-yard a little while since. Ah! That moves you. She is beautiful, friend Roger."

"Who is she?"

"Mademoiselle Christine de Liancourt, and might be ruler in Montvilliers, but that the law denies it to a woman. There are many who would overthrow that law if she would let them, but she will make no sign. The Duke is dead; his son must reign in his stead. This son is a poor sort of fellow, a lover of books instead of a man of affairs."

"The pale scholar of Passey," said Herrick.

"How learnt you that catch phrase?" asked the dwarf sharply.

"I overheard it to-night."

"Yes; they call him that," Jean went on slowly, "and in truth he may make us a poor Duke, but Mademoiselle de Liancourt thinks otherwise. Count Felix – maybe you overheard him mentioned to-night?"

"I did. He would be Duke, and the old Duke wished it so."

"You have great knowledge for a casual traveller in Vayenne, friend Roger," said the dwarf with some suspicion, "but you shall explain it to me presently. Count Felix would be Duke; more, would wed with Christine de Liancourt, and she loves not either of these ideas. To-night she rides to Passey to carry news of the Duke's death to his son, and to bring him to Vayenne."

"A strange office for a woman to perform; stranger still that Count Felix should let her go and jeopardize his schemes," Herrick said.

"She has influence with the scholar, who has no desire to be a Duke, that is why she was determined to go. Count Felix thought it wise not to thwart her, since he would stand well in her favor, but he has arranged that an accident shall prevent the scholar ever reaching Vayenne. The escort will be attacked, and it is arranged shall be beaten, and no effort will suffice to save the life of the scholar. It is cleverly conceived, eh, friend Roger? A man who can plot so prettily will go far toward success."

"But you could have warned her," Herrick exclaimed. "Why didn't you?"

"I am an innocent. Who would believe me?"

Herrick glanced at the window.

"Of what think you, friend Roger?"

"That Mademoiselle sorely needs a swift messenger to-night."

The dwarf sprang to his feet.

"Truly, by the way one man gets in another may well leave. But stay." And he put his hand on Herrick's arm. "I took you not for a spy when I saw you in the court-yard to-night, but how came you by your knowledge of the scholar of Passey?"

"As I dined to-night at the Croix Verte I heard a priest talk of him."

"A narrow, hatchet-faced priest, with never a smile, and eyes that look into you without blinking?"

"The same."

"Ah, Father Bertrand has his plot, too. When he talks, friend Roger, remember how easy it is for a man to lie. Come, you shall be the swift messenger Mademoiselle needs. That is why I came to-night. See, I have brought what shall pass you easily through the streets." And he produced a priest's cassock and cloak with a hood, which he had deftly fastened round him under the folds of his smock. "I borrowed them from St. Etienne." And then, as Herrick arrayed himself in the garments, he silently clapped his hands. "You are more like a priest than most of the real ones I know," he chuckled.

"I do not know how I am to travel to Passey, but, at least, I trust you, and there's the proof of it," said Herrick, handing the dwarf his knife.

"A little while ago you didn't know that the bar was loose in that window," said Jean, taking the weapon, "and you didn't know me. To-morrow is as far off as next year for all a man knows of it."

"That's true."

"There are those who would wed to-morrow, yet die to-night," the dwarf went on. "It's a world of minutes for us all. You come to understand these things when you roam through St. Etienne at nights. I'll set you on your way to Passey within an hour unless 'twixt now and then time ends for me. If so, you must needs shift for yourself."

He caught hold of the rope as he spoke, and swung himself to the window-ledge with the agility of an ape. Impeded by his unaccustomed garments, Herrick found it a more difficult matter; but he was strong and athletic, and in a few moments was crouching on his knees beside the dwarf.

The bars were placed midway in the thickness of the wall, so that on either side there was room for them both.

"We'll shut our door," whispered the dwarf when they had crawled through the opening, and he replaced the movable bar and drew up the rope. The next instant he had gripped his companion's arm to compel him to silence and to keep him motionless. Below was the sound of a heavy step, which came to a halt immediately beneath them, and from within the cell came a grating noise. It was the great key being thrust into the lock.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROAD TO PASSEY

That intricate calculations occupied Father Bertrand's mind as he slowly paced his room from end to end was apparent in his face. Ascetic in appearance, wont to present a calm exterior under the most trying circumstances, the fact of his restlessness proved that he had reached some crisis, that some part of his scheme was on the point of settlement. Father Bertrand was a power in Vayenne. Not greatly beloved, perhaps – he was too stern and unbending for that – his priestly office, nevertheless, appealed strongly to a people naturally superstitious, while his learning and political acumen made him forceful with those who ruled. He held no office; but even the late Duke, strong as he was, had sometimes been guided by his opinion, and Count Felix recognized long ago, that, in his claim to the Dukedom, the support of Father Bertrand would be of very real value.

If he is a weak man who cannot refrain from speaking his thoughts, the priest was a very strong man, for to no one had he betrayed himself. Count Felix felt confident of his support; Mademoiselle de Liancourt believed that he heartily shared her ideas of right and justice; while, as a priest, he spoke with authority to the great mass of the people, who believed his policy based entirely upon his religion. A few who fondly believed themselves in his confidence, but were in reality little more than his tools, knew at least that other schemes were working in his mind, and that, as a member of a secret order, his information was invariably correct and reached him long before it was known in the castle. In a peculiar sense he was all things to all men, yet really known by none. Such a man must needs walk warily, for his path is beset with snares.

Father Bertrand, moreover, was a man of wealth. His charity was known in Vayenne, yet he fared simply himself, it was whispered; and there were those who could tell of the mean, poor room he occupied in his house in the Rue St. Romain, a room little removed as regards comfort from that of the ordinary toiler of the city. But there were other rooms in the house in the Rue St. Romain, and there was no lack of luxury in the large chamber on the upper floor which the priest paced slowly from end to end to-night. It was evidence not only of wealth, but of taste, too, and had they known of it, many in Vayenne would probably have formed a different estimate of Father Bertrand's character.

Absorbed as he was in his calculations, the priest was keenly alive to every new sound in the street or in the house. Several times he paused to listen, and once drew aside the heavy window curtains to look down into the street below. The Rue St. Romain lay along the north side of the Church of St. Etienne, and was little frequented after nightfall. Any excitement resulting from the death of the Duke would hardly penetrate here.

There was a knocking at the door at last, and Father Bertrand immediately took his seat at a large writing-table, and, drawing some of the papers with which it was covered toward him, began to study them carefully. No matter how agitated he might be in thought, his visitor would only see him calm and self-possessed, and doubtless be more impressed than ever with the priest's strength of character.