Samuel Crockett - The White Plumes of Navarre - A Romance of the Wars of Religion

Instantly the girl's demeanour changed. Half rising, she reached out her hand and clutched the astonished Guise by the cuff of his black velvet sleeve.

"Do not trust the King of France," she whispered, "do not put yourself in the power of the King of Spain. Do not listen to my uncle, Osorio, who does his bidding. Keep away from Blois. Make yourself strong in your own territories – I, who speak, warn you. There is but a hair's breadth between you and death. Above all, do not listen to Mariana the Jesuit. Do not believe him on his sworn oath. His Order seeks your death now that you have served their turn, and – I do not wish harm to come to a brave man."

Had Valentine's eyes been upon the door she would have seen it open slightly as if a breeze were pushing it.

"And pray, princess," said Guise, smiling, well content, "would it be the act of a brave man thus to shun danger?"

"The lion is not the braver for leaping into the prepared pit with his eyes open. He is only foolish!"

Guise laughed easily.

"If I were to take you at your word, princess," he said, "I should hear no more of you in my dull Lorraine. I could not carry you off to cheer me at Soissons. But here in Paris I may at least see you daily – hear your voice, or if no better, see you at the window as I walk in my garden – "

"Ah," cried Valentine, thrusting out her hand hastily, palm outward, "do not think of me. I am but the snare set, the trap baited. I am not my own. I can love no man – choose no man. I belong to Those Unseen – "

She cast her hand backward towards Spain, as if to indicate infinite malign forces at work there. "But I warn you – get hence quickly, avoid Blois. Do not trust the King, nor any king. Do not listen to my uncle Osorio, and, above all, do not listen to Mariana the Jesuit."

And with a rapid rustle of light garments she was gone. Guise attempted to take her hand in passing, but it easily evaded him. Valentine vanished behind the arras, where was a door which led directly to the women's apartments.

A moment Guise stood pulling at his moustache sourly enough, ruminating on the warning he had received and, in the sudden disappointment, half inclined to profit by it. To him entered the Jesuit, smiling and dimpled as ever.

"My Lord Duke, I find you alone," he began courteously, "this is ill treatment for an honoured guest. Permit me – "

"That lady," demanded Guise, brusquely, "who is she?"

"The niece of the Marquis Osorio," murmured the Jesuit, "my old scholar, dear to me as the apple of mine eye, almost a daughter."

"Is she of royal blood?" said Guise, who, though he had to be upon his manners with Valentine herself, saw no reason for mincing matters with a mere Jesuit scribbler.

"As to that it were well to consult her uncle," said Mariana, very softly, "we of the Society do not concern ourselves with matters purely secular. In any case, be assured that the family honour is quite safe in the Marquis's hands!"

"I did not doubt it," said Guise, tossing his silken cape over his arm and evidently about to take flight. Mariana accompanied him to the foot of the stairs, murmuring commonplaces, how that there would likely be a thunderstorm which would clear the air, and that he would take it upon him to make the adieux of his Grace of Guise to the Marquis Osorio, his good friend and kinsman.

But just at the last he glided in his dart.

"And by the way, we may not see you again, unless you too are going south. We start to-morrow for the Blois, where the Queen Mother holds her court. She has written most graciously to the Countess Valentine offering her hospitality, and the gaiety which young folk love, among her maids of honour!"

And as he tucked up his soutane in order to remount the stairs, the Jesuit chuckled to himself. "And that, I think, will do – if so be I know the blood of the breed of Guise!"

The river flowed at their right hand, the water blue, the pebbly banks chased silver, green walls of wood framing the picture, and noble châteaux looking out here and there.

Almost audibly Claire's heart beat. She had seen the court of the King of Navarre, what time Margaret of Valois made Nerac gay for a whole year, as ever was Paris under the first Francis. But even there, betwixt the old grey château on the hill and the new summer pavilion in the valley, something of the warriors' camp had ever lingered about that Capua of the "Bearnais."

Besides, Claire had been young then, and many things she had not understood – which was perhaps the better for her and the happier. But now, she doubted not. The child was a woman, and all would now be made clear. Not Eve, looking up at the Eden apple-tree in the reserved corner of the orchard, had more of certainty that all happiness lay in the tasting of the first of these golden pippins.

Presently they began to mingle with the crowd, and from under his shaggy brows the Professor watched the gay young courtiers with unconcealed displeasure.

As he listened to the quick give-and-take of wit from this galliard to the other, he murmured to himself the words of the Wise Man, even the words of Jesus the son of Sirach, "There is a certain subtlety that is fine, but it is unrighteous."

And to his pupil he said, "Answer not these fools according to their folly. Your sword's point will make a better answer! Even I myself – "

But here he checked himself, as if he would have said something that became not a grave Professor of the Sorbonne in the habit of his order.

And even while saying so – lo! in a moment, the swords were out and flickering, his own first of all, the same little, thin, snaky sword-cane made in Toledo, supple as a reed, which the Abbé John and Guy Launay had returned to appropriate on the Day of the Barricades. John d'Albret stood on his defence with an Italian blade, having a small cup to protect the over-guard, which was just coming into fashion among the young bloods. While from the rear Jean-aux-Choux spurred his Flanders mare into the riot, waving over his head a huge two-handed sword of Italian pattern, like those with which the Swiss had harvested the armoured knights like ripe corn at Granson and at Morat.

And the reason of the pother was this.

A couple of gentlemen-cavaliers had approached from behind, and descending as suddenly as hawks into a courtyard full of doves fluttering and pacing each in his innocence, had deftly cut out the little jennet of Arab blood on which Claire was riding.

Her dark student's over-mantle, descending low as her spurs, had not concealed from these faithful stewards of their master that the younger and more delicately featured of the two clerks was no other than a pretty maiden.

"Our great Duke would speak with you, Mistress," was all the explanation they deigned to give. And in such troubled times even so much was frequently omitted.

But the hawks soon found out their mistake. Though the Professor's sword-cane might have been safely disregarded by the breast-plate wearers, it was otherwise with the huge bell-mouthed pistol which he carried in his left hand. It was also far otherwise with the snaky blade of the Abbé John, the daintiest sworder of all the Pré des Clercs . The man at the left of Claire's bridle-rein felt something sting him just at the coming together of the head-piece and shoulder-plates. Even less could the two captors afford to disregard Claire's last defender, when, all unexpectedly, with a shrill war-cry of "Stirling Brig an' doon wi' the Papishers," Jean-aux-Choux whirled two-handed into the fray.

The first blow fell on the right-hand man. Fair on the boss of his shoulder-plate, heavy as a mace, fell that huge six foot of blade.

The armour was of proof, or that head would have been shorn from his body. As it was, the man fell senseless from his horse. Promptly his companion let go the rein of Claire's pony, crying, "Help there, my Lord Duke!" And so, wheeling his horse about, put speed to it, and rode in the direction of a group of gay knights and gentlemen who, as it now appeared, had been watching the fray with some amusement without caring to meddle with it.