“Release him, and, in God’s name, go your ways. None shall stay you,” she promised him.
He smiled. “I’ll need some security for that. I do not choose to take your word for it, Madame de Condillac.”
“What security can I give you?” she cried, wringing her hands, her eyes on the boy’s ashen face ashen from mingling fear and rage—where it showed beyond Garnache’s heavy boot.
“Bid one of your knaves summon my servant. I left him awaiting me in the courtyard.”
The order was given, and one of the cut-throats departed.
In a tense and anxious silence they awaited his return, though he kept them but an instant.
Rabecque’s eyes took on a startled look when he had viewed the situation. Garnache called to him to deprive those present of their weapons.
“And let none refuse, or offer him violence,” he added, “or your master’s life shall pay the price of it.”
The Dowager with a ready anxiety repeated to them his commands. Rabecque, understanding nothing, went from man to man, and received from each his weapons. He placed the armful on the windowseat, at the far end of the apartment, as Garnache bade him. At the other end of the long room, Garnache ordered the disarmed men to range themselves. When that was done, the Parisian removed his foot from his victim’s neck.
“Stand up,” he commanded, and Marius very readily obeyed him.
Garnache placed himself immediately behind the boy. “Madame,” said he, “no harm shall come to your son if he is but wise. Let him disobey me, or let any man in Condillac lift a hand against us, and that shall be the signal for Monsieur de Condillac’s death. Mademoiselle, it is your wish to accompany me to Paris?”
“Yes, monsieur,” she answered fearlessly, her eyes sparkling now.
“We will be going then. Place yourself alongside of Monsieur de Condillac. Rabecque, follow me. Forward, Monsieur de Condillac. You will be so good as to conduct us to our horses in the courtyard.”
They made an odd procession as they marched out of the hall, under the sullen eyes of the baulked cut-throats and their mistress. On the threshold Garnache paused, and looked over his shoulder.
“Are you content, madame? Have you seen fine deeds enough for one day?” he asked her, laughing. But, white to the lips with chagrin, she returned no answer.
Garnache and his party crossed the anteroom, after having taken the precaution to lock the door upon the Marquise and her men, and proceeding down a gloomy passage they gained the courtyard. Here Marius was consoled to find some men of the garrison of Condillac a half-score, or so—all more or less armed, surrounding the horses of Garnache and his lackey. At sight of the odd group that now appeared those ruffians stood at gaze, surprised, and with suspicions aroused by Garnache’s naked sword, ready for anything their master might demand of them.
Marius had in that instant a gleam of hope. Thus far, Garnache had been master of the situation. But surely the position would be reversed when Garnache and his man came to mount their horses, particularly considering how hampered they must be by Valerie. This danger Garnache, however, was no less quick to perceive, and with a dismaying promptness did he take his measures.
“Remember,” he threatened Monsieur de Condillac, “if any of your men show their teeth it will be the worse for you.” They had come to a halt on the threshold of the courtyard. “You will be so good as to bid them retreat through that doorway across the yard yonder.”
Marius hesitated. “And if I refuse?” he demanded hardily, but keeping his back to Garnache. The men stirred, and stray words of mingling wonder and anger reached the Parisian.
“You will not,” said Garnache, with quiet confidence.
“I think you make too sure,” Marius replied, and dissembled his misgivings in a short laugh. Garnache became impatient. His position was not being improved by delay.
“Monsieur de Condillac,” said he, speaking quickly and yet with an incisiveness of tone that made his words sound deliberate, “I am a desperate man in a desperate position. Every moment that I tarry here increases my danger and shortens my temper. If you think to temporize in the hope of gaining an opportunity of turning the tables upon me, you must be mad to dream that I shall permit it. Monsieur, you will at once order those men to leave the courtyard by that doorway, or I give you my word of honour that I shall run you through as you stand.”
“That would be to destroy yourself,” said Marius with an attempted note of confidence.
“I should be no less destroyed by delay,” answered Garnache; and added more sharply, “Give the word, monsieur, or I will make an end.”
From the movement behind him Marius guessed almost by instinct that Garnache had drawn back for a lunge. At his side Valerie looked over her shoulder, with eyes that were startled but unafraid. For a second Marius considered whether he might not attempt to elude Garnache by a wild and sudden dash towards his men. But the consequences of failure were too fearful.
He shrugged his shoulders, and gave the order. The men hesitated a moment, then shuffled away in the direction indicated. But they went slowly, with much half-whispered, sullen conferring and many a backward glance at Marius and those with him.
“Bid them go faster,” snapped Garnache. Marius obeyed him, and the men obeyed Marius, and vanished into the gloom of the archway. After all, thought Monsieur de Condillac, they need go no farther than that doorway; they must have appreciated the situation by now; and he was confident they would have the sense to hold themselves in readiness for a rush in the moment of Garnache’s mounting.
But Garnache’s next order shattered that last hope.
“Rebecque,” said he, without turning his head, “go and lock them in.” Before bidding the men go that way, he had satisfied himself that there was a key on the outside of the door. “Monsieur de Condillac,” he resumed to Marius, “you will order your men in no way to hinder my servant. I shall act upon any menace of danger to my lackey precisely as I should were I, myself, in danger.”
Marius’s heart sank within him, as sinks a stone through water. He realized, as his mother had realized a little while before, that in Garnache they had an opponent who took no chances. In a voice thick with the torturing rage of impotence he gave the order upon which the grim Parisian insisted. There followed a silence broken by the fall of Rabecque’s heavily shod feet upon the stones of the yard, as he crossed it to do his master’s bidding. The door creaked on its hinges; the key grated screaming in its lock, and Rabecque returned to Garnache’s side even as Garnache tapped Marius on the shoulder.
“This way, Monsieur de Condillac, if you please,” said he, and as Marius turned at last to face him, he stood aside and waved his left hand towards the door through which they had lately emerged. A moment stood the youth facing his stern conqueror; his hands were clenched until the knuckles showed white; his face was a dull crimson. Vainly he sought for words in which to vent some of the malicious chagrin that filled his soul almost to bursting-point. Then, despairing, with a shrug and an inarticulate mutter, he flung past the Parisian, obeying him as the cur obeys, with pendant tail and teeth-revealing snarl.
Garnache closed the door upon him with a bang, and smiled quietly as he turned to Valerie.
“I think we have won through, mademoiselle,” said he, with pardonable vanity. “The rest is easy, though you may be subjected to some slight discomfort between this and Grenoble.”
She smiled back at him, a pale, timid smile, like a gleam of sunshine from a wintry sky. “That matters nothing,” she assured him, and strove to make her voice sound brave.
There was need for speed, and compliments were set aside by Garnache,