"Ah, well met, M. le Comte," he sneered, with as much hostility as he dared betray. "The King has asked for you twice."
"I am going to him. And you? Whither in such a hurry, M. Nancay?"
"To Chatillon."
"On pleasant business?"
"Enough that it is on the King's!" Nancay replied, with unexpected temper. "I hope that you may find yours as pleasant!" he added with a grin. And he went on.
The gleam of malice in the man's eye warned Tavannes to pause. He looked round for some one who might be in the secret, saw the Provost of the Merchants, and approached him.
"What's amiss, M. le Charron?" he asked. "Is not the affair going as it should?"
"'Tis about the Arsenal, M. le Comte," the Provost answered busily. "M. de Biron is harbouring the vermin there. He has lowered the portcullis and pointed his culverins over the gate and will not yield it or listen to reason. The King would bring him to terms, but no one will venture himself inside with the message. Rats in a trap, you know, bite hard, and care little whom they bite."
"I begin to understand."
"Precisely, M. le Comte. His Majesty would have sent M. de Nancay. But he elected to go to Chatillon, to seize the young brood there. The Admiral's children, you comprehend."
"Whose teeth are not yet grown! He was wise."
"To be sure, M. de Tavannes, to be sure. But the King was annoyed, and on top of that came a priest with complaints, and if I may make so bold as to advise you, you will not--"
But Tavannes fancied that he had caught the gist of the difficulty, and with a nod he moved on; and so he missed the warning which the other had it in his mind to give. A moment and he reached the inner circle, and there halted, disconcerted, nay taken aback. For as soon as he showed his face, the King, who was pacing to and fro like a caged beast, before a table at which three clerks knelt on cushions, espied him, and stood still. With a glare of something like madness in his eyes, Charles raised his hand, and with a shaking finger singled him out.
"So, by G-d, you are there!" he cried, with a volley of blasphemy. And he signed to those about Count Hannibal to stand away from him. "You are there, are you? And you are not afraid to show your face? I tell you, it's you and such as you bring us into contempt! so that it is said everywhere Guise does all and serves God, and we follow because we must! It's you, and such as you, are stumbling-blocks to our good folk of Paris! Are you traitor, sirrah?" he continued with passion, "or are you of our brother Alencon's opinions, that you traverse our orders to the damnation of your soul and our discredit? Are you traitor? Or are you heretic? Or what are you? God in heaven, will you answer me, man, or shall I send you where you will find your tongue?"
"I know not of what your Majesty accuses me," Count Hannibal answered, with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders.
"I? 'Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair hung damp on his brow, and he dried his hands continually; while his gestures had the ill-measured and eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you! Speak, father, and confound him!"
Then Tavannes discovered on the farther side of the circle the priest whom his brother had ridden down that morning. Father Pezelay's pale hatchet-face gleamed paler than ordinary; and a great bandage hid one temple and part of his face. But below the bandage the flame of his eyes was not lessened, nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had come--for no other would deal with his violent opponent; to the King's presence! and, as he prepared to blast his adversary, now his chance was come, his long lean frame, in its narrow black cassock, seemed to grow longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake-like. He stood there a fitting representative of the dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles and his successor--the last of a doomed line--alternately used as tool or feared as master; and to which the most debased and the most immoral of courts paid, in its sober hours, a vile and slavish homage. Even in the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers--who stood, if they stood for anything, for that other influence of the day, the Renaissance--he was to be reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine out of ten who listened to him, a priest was more sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the virtues of spotless innocence.
"Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw with the other?" the priest began, in a voice hoarse yet strident, a voice borne high above the crowd on the wings of passion. "Shall he spare of the best of the men and the maidens whom God hath doomed, whom the Church hath devoted, whom the King hath given? Is the King's hand shortened or his word annulled that a man does as he forbiddeth and leaves undone what he commandeth? Is God mocked? Woe, woe unto you," he continued, turning swiftly, arms uplifted, towards Tavannes, "who please yourself with the red and white of their maidens and take of the best of the spoil, sparing where the King's word is 'Spare not'! Who strike at Holy Church with the sword! Who--"
"Answer, sirrah!" Charles cried, spurning the floor in his fury. He could not listen long to any man. "Is it so? Is it so? Do you do these things?"
Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders and was about to answer, when a thick, drunken voice rose from the crowd behind him.
"Is it what? Eh! Is it what?" it droned. And a figure with bloodshot eyes, disordered beard, and rich clothes awry, forced its way through the obsequious circle. It was Marshal Tavannes. "Eh, what? You'd beard the King, would you?" he hiccoughed truculently, his eyes on Father Pezelay, his hand on his sword. "Were you a priest ten times--"
"Silence!" Charles cried, almost foaming with rage at this fresh interruption. "It's not he, fool! 'Tis your pestilent brother."
"Who touches my brother touches Tavannes!" the Marshal answered with a menacing gesture. He was sober enough, it appeared, to hear what was said, but not to comprehend its drift; and this caused a titter, which immediately excited his rage. He turned and seized the nearest laugher by the ear. "Insolent!" he cried. "I will teach you to laugh when the King speaks! Puppy! Who laughs at his Majesty or touches my brother has to do with Tavannes!"
The King, in a rage that almost deprived him of speech, stamped the floor twice.
"Idiot!" he cried. "Imbecile! Let the man go! 'Tis not he! 'Tis your heretic brother, I tell you! By all the Saints! By the body of--" and he poured forth a flood of oaths. "Will you listen to me and be silent! Will you--your brother--"
"If he be not your Majesty's servant, I will kill him with this sword!" the irrepressible Marshal struck in. "As I have killed ten to-day! Ten!" And, staggering back, he only saved himself from falling by clutching Chicot about the neck.
"Steady, my pretty Marechale!" the jester cried, chucking him under the chin with one hand, while with some difficulty he supported him with the other--for he, too, was far from sober--
"Pretty Margot, toy with me, Maiden bashful--"
"Silence!" Charles cried, darting forth his long arms in a fury of impatience. "God, have I killed every man of sense? Are you all gone mad? Silence! Do you hear? Silence! And let me hear what he has to say," with a movement towards Count Hannibal. "And look you, sirrah," he continued with a curse, "see that it be to the purpose!"
"If it be a question of your Majesty's service," Tavannes answered, "and obedience to your Majesty's orders, I am deeper in it than he who stands there!" with a sign towards the priest. "I give my word for that. And I will prove it."
"How,