"There is no question of daring in it," he replied. "And the more public it is, the better he will like it. They have dared to take thousands of lives since yesterday. There is no one to call him to account since the king--our king forsooth!--has declared every Huguenot an outlaw, to be killed wherever he be met with. No, when Bezers disarmed me yonder," he pointed as he spoke to his wound, "I looked of course for instant death. Anne!
I saw blood in his eyes! But he did not strike.""Why not?" I asked in suspense.
"I can only guess," Louis answered with a sigh. "He told me that my life was in his hands, but that he should take it at his own time. Further that if I would not give my word to go with him without trying to escape, he would throw me to those howling dogs outside. I gave my word. We are on the road together. And oh, Anne! yesterday, only yesterday, at this time I was riding home with Teligny from the Louvre, where we had been playing at paume with the king! And the world--the world was very fair.""I saw you, or rather Croisette did," I muttered as his sorrow--not for himself, but his friends--forced him to stop. "Yet how, Louis, do you know that we are going to Cahors?""He told me, as we passed through the gates, that he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy to carry out the edict against the religion. Do you not see, Anne?" my companion added bitterly, "to kill me at once were too small a revenge for him!
He must torture me--or rather he would if he could--by the pains of anticipation.
Besides, my execution will so finely open his bed of justice.
Bah!" and Pavannes raised his head proudly, "I fear him not! Ifear him not a jot!"
For a moment he forgot Kit, the loss of his friends, his own doom. He snapped his fingers in derision of his foe.
But my heart sank miserably. The Vidame's rage I remembered had been directed rather against my cousin than her lover; and now by the light of his threats I read Bezers' purpose more clearly than Louis could. His aim was to punish the woman who had played with him. To do so he was bringing her lover from Paris that he might execute him--AFTER GIVING HER NOTICE! That was it: after giving her notice, it might be in her very presence! He would lure her to Cahors, and then--I shuddered. I well might feel that a precipice was opening at my feet. There was something in the plan so devilish, yet so accordant with those stories I had heard of the Wolf, that I felt no doubt of my insight. I read his evil mind, and saw in a moment why he had troubled himself with us. He hoped to draw Mademoiselle to Cahors by our means.
Of course I said nothing of this to Louis. I hid my feelings as well as I could. But I vowed a great vow that at the eleventh hour we would baulk the Vidame. Surely if all else failed we could kill him, and, though we died ourselves, spare Kit this ordeal. My tears were dried up as by a fire. My heart burned with a great and noble rage: or so it seemed to me!
I do not think that there was ever any journey so strange as this one of ours. We met with the same incidents which had pleased us on the road to Paris. But their novelty was gone. Gone too were the cosy chats with old rogues of landlords and good-natured dames. We were travelling now in such force that our coming was rather a terror to the innkeeper than a boon. How much the Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy, going down to his province, requisitioned in the king's name; and for how much he paid, we could only judge from the gloomy looks which followed us as we rode away each morning. Such looks were not solely due I fear to the news from Paris, although for some time we were the first bearers of the tidings.
Presently, on the third day of our journey I think, couriers from the Court passed us: and henceforth forestalled us. One of these messengers--who I learned from the talk about me was bound for Cahors with letters for the Lieutenant-Governor and the Count-Bishop--the Vidame interviewed and stopped. How it was managed I do not know, but I fear the Count-Bishop never got his letters, which I fancy would have given him some joint authority.
Certainly we left the messenger--a prudent fellow with a care for his skin--in comfortable quarters at Limoges, whence I do not doubt he presently returned to Paris at his leisure.
The strangeness of the journey however arose from none of these things, but from the relations of our party to one another.
After the first day we four rode together, unmolested, so long as we kept near the centre of the straggling cavalcade. The Vidame always rode alone, and in front, brooding with bent head and sombre face over his revenge, as I supposed. He would ride in this fashion, speaking to no one and giving no orders, for a day together. At times I came near to pitying him. He had loved Kit in his masterful way, the way of one not wont to be thwarted, and he had lost her--lost her, whatever might happen. He would get nothing after all by his revenge. Nothing but ashes in the mouth. And so I saw in softer moments something inexpressibly melancholy in that solitary giant-figure pacing always alone.
He seldom spoke to us. More rarely to Louis. When he did, the harshness of his voice and his cruel eyes betrayed the gloomy hatred in which he held him. At meals he ate at one end of the table: we four at the other, as three of us had done on that first evening in Paris. And sometimes the covert looks, the grim sneer he shot at his rival--his prisoner--made me shiver even in the sunshine. Sometimes, on the other hand, when I took him unawares, I found an expression on his face I could not read.
I told Croisette, but warily, my suspicions of his purpose. He heard me, less astounded to all appearance than I had expected.
Presently I learned the reason. He had his own view. "Do you not think it possible, Anne?" he suggested timidly--we were of course alone at the time-- "that he thinks to make Louis resign Mademoiselle?""Resign her!" I exclaimed obtusely. "How?"
"By giving him a choice--you understand?"
