Chapter IV
The shadows fell heavily in the great hall of the Château de Mereac. In one corner the fool Pierre had lain himself down on the rushes to sleep, clasping his smaller namesake to his narrow chest. By the empty hearth Gaspard de Mereac leant back in his great chair, half dozing after his hawking, the gay gerfalcon perched on the back of the seat, preening herself with stately grace, as one who would say, “See one who has proved her worth and won the praises of all who beheld her prowess.” At their master’s feet lay the wolf-hounds, Gloire and Reine, the former raising his stately head from time to time to softly lick the hand which hung over the oaken chair. A step coming hastily across the hall roused the lord of the castle into a sudden, irritated wakefulness, for well he knew it was not the gentle tread of his little Gwennola, but instead, as one sleepy glance told him, his nephew Guillaume de Coray. Something however, in the latter’s disordered dress and pale face roused him from his dreams of gallant hawks and screaming herons to demand abruptly what had chanced.
“Chanced?” echoed de Coray vaguely. “Chanced, monsieur my uncle? Nay, naught hath chanced, but——” He paused, as if striving to collect a train of wandering thoughts, leaning his chin on his hand as he sat down on a bench opposite to his interrogator.
“Where hast been all day?” demanded de Mereac, stretching out his legs with a sleepy yawn and pausing to pat Gloire’s faithful head as he raised himself in his seat. “Verily thou hast missed as fair a day’s sport as I have had for many a day. De Plöernic rated not his fair Spaniard too highly after all. Seldom have I seen so straight a flight; but thou shalt judge for thyself on the morrow, for I have promised to take the little Gwennola with me, and thou, too, Guillaume, wilt doubtless accompany us?”
“Doubtless,” replied the younger man, but his listless tone and moody face drew fresh inquiries from his uncle as to his day’s doings. De Coray replied evasively, still preserving the same gloomy manner, whilst his knitted brow seemed to speak of perplexity and indecision.
“What ails thee, man?” cried de Mereac heartily, “thou art as gloomy as any fat abbot on a fast day. Say then, has my lady been flouting thee? A plague on the little rogue, she hath scarce been near me this day!”
De Coray glanced sideways towards his uncle, then downwards, whilst a sinister smile played round his mouth.
“Perchance the French knight’s wounds have needed too much of my fair mistress’s care,” he said maliciously, noting with satisfaction how the shaft went home, from the old man’s sudden start and angry frown. Then, dropping his hesitating manner, he leant forward, speaking slowly but emphatically. “Monsieur,” he said softly, “it is in my mind that I should tell you clearly that which I alone have knowledge of; perchance you will blame me for not having spoken sooner, but knightly honour forbade me. Now, however, the necessity seemeth to me greater even than any false sense of magnanimity, seeing that we cross not swords with the viper, but rather crush him under heel before he does us mortal ill, and so——” He paused, to give perhaps greater weight to his words, narrowly watching the stern, set face opposite him, which seemed to have stiffened into an iron mask.
“Speak thy mind, man,” demanded the old noble curtly. “If there is ill to tell, tell it me—the saints know I have borne such before—but cease to prate of that which is beside the purpose, as is the way with women and fools—not men.”
“Nay,” said de Coray, flushing under the reproof, “there is that to tell which will be hard for you to hear, monsieur, and I would but prepare you for the tale; as you may well guess, it concerneth this Frenchman whom fate, by strange trickery, cast at your gates.”
De Mereac’s jaw closed with a snap.
“He hath satisfied me that he is no spy,” he replied sternly. “I have accepted his knightly word, and though it be bitter for me to extend hospitality to the enemy of my country and one of my son’s slayers, still, by all the laws of knighthood and chivalry he goes free as soon as he is fit to travel.”
“So,” said de Coray, “he hath satisfied you, monsieur? That may well be, since he knew not the name of his victim, and yet I may well wonder how he trains his tongue to speak smooth words in a Breton’s ear when he remembereth St Aubin du Cormier.”
The old man’s face paled. “St Aubin du Cormier?” he murmured.
“Yes, St Aubin du Cormier,” repeated de Coray, moving a little nearer, as if he feared his words might be overheard. “Listen, monsieur, and you will understand why, at sight of yon dog lying under the greenwood, I cried to you to yield him no mercy, but to mete out to him the dog’s death he deserved.”
“Speak,” said de Mereac hoarsely, “I can ill brook such preamble.”
“The battle was a bloody one, as you may well remember,” began de Coray. “We of Brittany fought gallantly, as we ever do, and the English archers of Lord Woodville yielded only to the French with their lives; for myself, I had escaped throughout the fight, and towards evening found myself driven back, close to a wood, by the side of the Prince of Orange, who, seeing the chances of the day had gone against us, tore from his breast the black cross of Brittany, urging us, his followers, to do the same, for that nothing remained to us but flight. His words were true, but, for all that, no true Breton amongst us tore the cross from his tunic, though we sought flight readily enough amongst the trees, and in so doing it chanced that I became separated from the rest, and, wandering alone through the wood, came suddenly in sight of a man clad in the armour of a Frenchman, who walked stealthily; for an instant I paused, and, alas! monsieur, before I could conceive the meaning of the situation, it was too late. A Breton knight, whom I recognised on the instant as my cousin Yvon, was standing spent and weary by his horse’s side, whilst the animal drank greedily of the water from a brook which ran hard by. Yvon’s vizor was up, and I could see he was pale with excitement and exhaustion, though methinks unwounded. His back was turned towards his enemy, and before I could cry a word of warning, the cowardly traitor had sprung forward and cloven him from brow to chin, so that he fell dead by his horse’s side. I sprang forward also, with a cry, but the Frenchman was true to his colours; for one instant he looked at me, then, fearing doubtless that friends of mine and the dead man’s might be near, he drove fiercely at me with his sword, and fled, so that in the twilight I missed him, though, so thirsty grew my own good blade for his blood, that I searched till darkness fell and all hope of finding him was gone.”
“And?” groaned de Mereac.
De Coray smiled pensively. “Monsieur,” he added, “the French traitor’s vizor was also raised, so that I read well the features which I saw not again till I beheld them yonder in the forest.”
With a bitter curse the old man sprang to his feet with such vigour that Gloire and Reine raised their great heads with a short bark of excitement.
“He?” cried de Mereac, his voice quivering with fury, “he?—the man whose life I spared? the man who has partaken of my hospitality and eaten my salt? He? the base murderer of my Yvon?—my boy—my boy!” In spite of his anger his voice broke over the last words; then a fresh tempest seized him. “Fool!” he cried, gripping de Coray by the shoulder, “wherefore didst thou not tell me this when we found him yonder? wherefore prolong by an hour the life of so foul a thing?”
“Nay,” faltered de Coray, paling before the storm he had evoked. “Methought—the Lady Gwennola——”
“Gwennola!” shouted the old man. “Thrice double fool! thinkest thou there would be one throb of pity in her pure maiden’s heart for such an one as the murderer of her brother? Ay, murderer he is, and as such shall die. Hie thee, varlet, bid come hither on the instant Job and Henri. Ay! and bid them drag down yon foul thing from the chamber where he lieth so softly, and he shall learn what Breton justice is. Bah! the rope that should hang him would be for ever a thing dishonoured; rather would I give him to my good hounds yonder to tear limb from limb; though, by the bones of St Yves, such death even were too gentle and easy a thing for him.”
Pierre the fool, thus roughly roused from slumber to be sent in search of Job and his comrade, stood gaping and gasping before his master’s anger, whilst the ape from his shoulder grinned and gibbered in mocking imitation of its lord’s wrath; but before de Mereac’s fury could burst forth again upon the head of his witless retainer, a voice beside him turned the swift current of his thoughts into another channel. It was his daughter Gwennola who stood before him, pale but resolute, with no look of fear in her blue eyes as they met his stormy frown, but rather returning look for look, boldly and bravely.
“My father,” she said steadily, laying one white hand upon the sleeve of his long furred gown, “I have heard what”—her voice trembled—“what Monsieur de Coray has been saying, and,” she added, turning a blazing face of indignation towards the younger man, who stood leaning against the tapestry near, “I call him coward and liar to his face!”
There was an instant’s pause, de Mereac’s brows drawn ominously down as he glanced from his daughter to de Coray, whose mocking smile seemed to sting the girl to fresh anger.
“Liar and coward!” she cried, stamping her little foot, her blue eyes still ablaze. “Ah, monsieur my father, it is incredible that you believe him.”
“Incredible?” said the old man slowly, “and wherefore, child? More incredible to me that my daughter should take the part of a foul murderer, an enemy to her country and house, rather than the word of her betrothed husband.”
De Coray’s smile deepened. “Monsieur,” he said, with a mocking bow, “you asked me why I told a traitor’s secret now rather than yesterday—perhaps monsieur is answered.”
De Mereac’s eyes sought his daughter’s face sternly, but again she met them with a glance almost defiant, then softening, as she read a dumb agony behind the anger, till her own blue eyes brimmed with tears.
“Oh, my father!” she cried, drawing nearer to his side with outstretched hands, “in the name of justice listen to me, and heed not the words of yon cruel man. See, my father, if Monsieur d’Estrailles has done this thing, willingly would my hands tie the knot which bound the rope round his coward’s throat, but, my father, is it justice? is it a thing of honour to strike like the adder in the dark? I, yes, I, Gwennola de Mereac, challenge you, Guillaume de Coray, to repeat your lying tale before the man you accuse, and let my father judge between true knight and false.”
De Coray’s smile faded as he met her fearless gaze, then glanced sideways towards de Mereac, who stood hesitating, eagerly, it seemed, awaiting his answer.
“So be it, my fairest law-giver,” he said at last, with a forced smile. “To-morrow will be as good a hanging day as to-night, and perchance, as you suggest, the office shall fall to your own fair hands.”
She did not reply, but turned, curtsying gravely to her father as she quitted the hall.
Not another word was spoken between the two men left standing there amongst the shadows. De Mereac, whose transport of rage seemed to have died down, since his daughter’s interference, into a sullen moodiness, soon strode away, leaving Guillaume alone. The young man’s meditations seemed perchance to be scarcely of a soothing nature, for, till darkness fell, he continued pacing up and down the hall, lost in thought, till a hand touching his roused him with a startled curse, and, looking down, he saw to his surprise the thin, shrewd face of Pierre the fool looking wistfully up into his.
“Monsieur,” said the boy softly, “I am monsieur’s slave; if I may be allowed to serve monsieur, perchance I can do much.”
Guillaume de Coray looked thoughtfully down into the oblique, uncanny eyes, then he smiled. “A friend,” he quoth lightly, “is at times a necessity, and should not be refused, mon Pierre, even when the friend is but a fool. Yes, I will accept, and,” he added, drawing a piece of money from his pocket, and placing it in the lad’s outstretched palm, “I will pay the price of true friendship, mon ami. See, there is already a service you can render me.” He drew Pierre as he spoke into a recess, dropping his voice, as if fearing that the pictured figures on the tapestry had ears to hear. “Yonder in the forest,” he said softly, “there wanders a man whom I would fain have speech with, a man, short, thick-set, with a red beard and black eyes; tell him,” he added, speaking slowly and impressively, with both hands on Pierre’s shoulders, “that his friend, his friend, mark you, boy, Guillaume de Coray, would have speech with him; that there is naught to fear and much to gain, and that to any rendezvous he may appoint I will come alone.”
Pierre’s black eyes shone as he looked up into de Coray’s pale face, nodding slowly. “Pierre understands,” he muttered. “Monsieur has trusted to Pierre the fool, who is now the friend of monsieur, and therefore it is understood that the man with the red beard shall be found. Is it not so, mon choux?” he added, caressing the ape, which he still carried in his arms. “Tiens! it is clear that Pierre the fool will soon be rich and great, and the little Gabrielle far away in the forest shall no more weep for hunger.” And as he turned away, the boy looked lovingly down at the piece of leather money with its small centre of silver which de Coray had given him. “Without doubt monsieur has a great heart,” he murmured softly. “As for the Lady Gwennola, I have no love for her, though she be fair as the dawn, for she has no love for monsieur, and none also for petit Pierre. Is it not so, mon petit? Bah! we shall be great soon, thou and I, mon Pierrot, very great.”