Part 10 (1/2)
CHAPTER V.
HOW LA TOURNOIRE ESCAPED FROM PARIS
I heard the key turn in the lock, and the Queen of Navarre leave the cabinet. She took the key with her, so that a tiny beam of light came through the keyhole, giving my dark hiding-place its only illumination.
I felt complete confidence both in Marguerite's show of willingness to save me, and in her ability to do so. All I could do was to wait, and leave my future in her hands.
After a long time, I heard steps in the cabinet outside the closet door, the beam of light from the keyhole was cut off, the key turned again, the door opened, and Marguerite again stood before me.
”Monsieur,” she said, ”that we may talk without danger, remain in the closet. I will leave the door slightly ajar, thus, and will sit here, near it, with my 'Book of Hours,' as if reading aloud to myself. Should any one come, I can lock your door again and hide the key. Hark! be silent, monsieur!”
And as she spoke, she shut the door, locked it, drew out the key, and sat down. I listened to learn what had caused this act of precaution.
”Madame,” I heard some one say, ”M. de l'Archant desires, by order of the King, to search your apartments for a man who is to be arrested, and who is thought to have secreted himself somewhere in the palace.”
”Let him enter.” said Marguerite. My heart stood still. Then I heard her say, in a tone of pleasantry:
”What, M. le Capitain, is there another St. Bartholomew, that people choose my apartments for refuge?”
”This time it is not certain that the fugitive is here,” replied Captain de l'Archant, of the bodyguard. ”He is known to have been in the palace this morning, and no one answering his description has been seen to leave by any of the gates. It was, indeed, a most sudden and mysterious disappearance; and it is thought that he has run to cover in some chamber or other. We are looking everywhere.”
”Who is the man?” asked Marguerite, in a tone of indifference.
”M. de la Tournoire, of the French Guards.”
”Very well. Look where you please. If he came into my apartments, he must have done so while I attended the _pet.i.te levee_ of the King; otherwise I should have seen him. What are you looking at? The door of that closet?
He could not have gone there without my knowledge. One of the maids locked it the other day, and the key has disappeared.” Whereupon, she tried the door, herself, as if in proof of her a.s.sertion.
”Then he cannot be there,” said De L'Archant, deceived by her manner; and he took his leave.
For some minutes I heard nothing but the monotonous voice of Marguerite as she read aloud to herself from her ”Book of Hours.”
Then she opened my door again. Through the tiny crack I saw a part of her head.
”Monsieur,” she said to me, keeping her eyes upon the book, and retaining the same changeless tone of one reading aloud, ”you see that you are safe, for the present. No one in the palace, save one of my maids, is aware that I know you or have reason to take the slightest interest in you. Your entrance to my apartments was made so naturally and openly that it left no impression on those who saw you come in. I have since sent every one of those persons on some errand, so that all who might happen to remember your coming here will suppose that you left during their absence. It was well that I brought you here; had I merely told you to leave the palace, immediately, you would not have known exactly how matters stood, and you would have been arrested at your lodgings, or on your way to your place of duty. By this time, orders have gone to the city gates to prevent your leaving Paris. Before noon, not only the body-guard, the Provost of the palace, and the French and Scotch Guards will be on the lookout for you, but also the gendarmes of the Provost of Paris. That is why we must be careful, and why stealth must be used in conveying you out of Paris.”
”They make a very important personage of me,” I said, in a low tone.
”Hus.h.!.+ When you speak imitate my tone, exactly, and be silent the instant I cough. Too many people are not to be trusted. That you may understand me, you must know precisely how matters stand. This morning my mother went to see the King in his chamber before he had risen. They discussed a matter which required my presence, and I was sent for. After we had finished our family council, my mother and I remained for a few words, in private, with each other. While we were talking, M. de Quelus came in and spoke for a while to the King. I heard the King reply, 'Certainly, as he preserved you to me, my friend.' De Quelus was about to leave the King's chamber, when the Duke of Guise was announced. De Quelus waited, out of curiosity, I suppose. M. de Guise was admitted. He immediately told the King that one of his gentlemen, M. de Noyard, had been killed by the Sieur de la Tournoire, one of the French Guards. I became interested, for I remembered your name as that of the gentleman who, according to my maid, had stopped the spy from whom I had had so much to fear. I recalled, also, that you had the esteem of my brother's faithful Bussy d'Amboise. My mother immediately expressed the greatest horror at De Noyard's death, with the greatest sympathy for M. de Guise; and she urged the King to make an example of you.”
I remembered, with a deep sigh, what De Rilly had told me,--that Catherine, to prevent the Duke of Guise from laying the death of De Noyard to her, would do her utmost to bring me to punishment.
”The King looked at De Quelus,” continued Marguerite. ”That gentleman, seeing how things were, and, knowing that the King now wishes to seem friendly to the Duke, promptly said, 'This is fortunate. La Tournoire is now waiting for me in the red gallery; I suppose he wishes to beg my intercession. His presumption will be properly punished when the guards arrest him there.'”
I turned sick, at this revelation of treachery. This was the gentleman who owed his life to me, and, in the first outburst of grat.i.tude, had promised to obtain for me a captaincy!
”The King,” Marguerite went on, ”at once ordered two of the Scotch Guards to arrest you. All this time, I had been standing at the window, looking out, as if paying no attention. My mother stopped the guards to give them some additional direction. No one was watching me. I pa.s.sed carelessly out, and you know what followed. At the _pet.i.te levee_, I learned what was thought of your disappearance,--that you had seen the Duke of Guise enter the King's apartments, had guessed his purpose, and had precipitately fled.”
I did not dare tell his sister what I thought of a King who would, without hesitation or question, offer up one of his guards as a sacrifice to appease that King's greatest enemy.