Part 7 (1/2)

He tried to appear bluff as he had been coached, but it was no good. 'Fear not, my good men,' he said shyly; and he thought that by the sound of his voice it was they who should be telling him not to fear.

He gave them the money.

'Tell me, what were you doing in the forests?'

They smiled and exchanged glances. They liked his youth and his shyness. What was there to fear? If he was the King, he was only a poor, delicate boy.

'We came to rescue you, Sire,' they whispered. It was apparent that the boy was uneasy; it seemed obvious that he would be nothing loth to escape from the rule of the Guises. With his stammering shyness he had won their confidence, and in a little while they were telling him that they had been sent from Geneva and that very shortly their leaders would join them.

The King hoped they would succeed; it was a genuine hope, for he could imagine nothing worse than the captivity he now endured under the control of the Duke and the Cardinal.

'Fear not, Sire,' whispered the leader of the men. 'There are forty thousand men on the way to your help.'

They thanked him for his graciousness; they kissed his hand with affection, it seemed; and Francis was very sorry for them and longed to warn them that they had been overheard.

They were taken as they left the castle, and for weeks afterwards their heads with those of many others who had been rounded up in the forest adorned the crenellations of the castle.

All the children, except Hercule, were summoned to the balcony. They dared not refuse to obey the order. They must sit with the ladies and courtiers while they watched the ma.s.sacre of Huguenots in the courtyard.

Francis felt sick; he could not endure it. Mary covered her face with her hands. Charles watched in horror; later he would go back to his tutors, who would talk of what had happened until he would scream and fall into one of his fits. Margot turned pale; it hurt her to see young and handsome men cruelly pinioned, pale from the dungeons, bleeding from the torture chambers. Margot could not bear to look at the blood, and there was blood everywhere. She wanted to scream: 'Stop! Stop!' Her brother Henry looked on with indifference; he did not care about anyone but himself and his pretty friends. But Henry of Guise was thrilled by the spectacle; he always took his cue from his father, and the ma.s.sacre of Huguenots was organised by the Guises; therefore it was right.

Francis of Guise exchanged approving glances with his son, the hope of his house. Henry's eyes showed how he adored his father, and there was contentment and understanding between those two. But the d.u.c.h.ess, Henry's mother, disgraced them all by covering her face with her hands and weeping.

'What ails you?' asked the Queen Mother, herself calmly watching the spectacle.

'This piteous tragedy!' cried the d.u.c.h.ess of Guise hysterically. 'This shedding of innocent blood ... the blood of the King's subjects. Oh, G.o.d in Heaven, terrible days are before us. I have no doubt that a great disaster will fall upon our house.'

Duke Francis angrily led his wife away, and Henry was ashamed of his mother.

Later, as the ma.s.sacres continued day after day, the Duke grew more cruel, as though in defiance of anything Fate could do to him. Everywhere was the sickening stench of blood and decaying flesh; when the children went about the grounds they would be faced with the sight of men's bodies hanging from the battlements. They watched men, fresh from the torture dungeons, tied in sacks and thrown into the Loire.

Neither Catherine nor the Guises attempted to stop the children's witnessing these terrible sights. Duke Francis knew that his son Henry would be hardened by them as he wished him to be hardened; Catherine knew that her Henry was quite as indifferent to the sufferings of others as she was herself. As for the rest of the children, it was to the Guises' advantage as well as that of Catherine that the King and his brother Charles should be weak, and it was in fact Francis and Charles whose nerves were racked by the horrors.

The b.l.o.o.d.y days went on and it seemed to the children that their beloved Amboise had taken on a new aspect. They thought of the dismal dungeons in which foul things were done; the beautiful battlements could not be dissociated from ghastly corpses which had once been men; the sparkling river was now the grave of many.

Francis cried when he was alone. It hurt him to go out and see how people shrank from him. When he approached he saw startled village women hustle the children into the safety of their cottages.

'Here comes the King!' they cried. 'He is sick, they say, and only keeps himself alive by drinking the blood of babies.'

'They hate me! They hate me!' sobbed Francis. 'They should be told that it is not I who do these terrible things.'

Once, with a sudden spurt of courage, he threw himself against the Cardinal and, when he felt the suit of mail beneath the Cardinal's robes, he knew that this man, too, was afraid.

The Cardinal lived in terror of a.s.sa.s.sination. He had altered the fas.h.i.+on in men's clothes that it might not be easy to hide weapons about their persons. Cloaks were no longer wide, boots were smaller, that daggers might not be secreted in them.

He is a coward, thought Francis; and he cried: 'It is because of you my people hate me. Would to G.o.d you would take yourself away from here!'

The Cardinal only smiled, for if he was afraid of an a.s.sa.s.sin, he was not afraid of the King.

In the little court at Nerac there was great consternation. A letter had arrived for the King of Navarre from the King of France. Antoine opened it and read: MY UNCLE, You doubtless will remember the letters which I wrote to you touching the rising which lately happened at Amboise, and also concerning my uncle, the Prince of Conde, your brother, whom many prisoners accuse vehemently; a belief which I could not entertain against one of my blood.

Antoine's eyes skimmed the page, his hands trembling. He read on: ... I have decided to investigate the matter, having resolved not to pa.s.s my life in trouble through the mad ambition of any of my subjects. I charge you, my uncle, to bring your brother, the Prince of Conde, to Orleans whether he should be willing or not, and should the said Prince refuse obedience, I a.s.sure you, my uncle, that I shall soon make it clear that I am your King ...'

Jeanne watched her husband as he read, saw the change of colour in his face, and she was afraid for him.

So much had happened during the last year that she had been forced to adjust her picture of him, but he was still her beloved husband, in spite of the occasional bickering between them. Their personalities were quite opposed, one to the other; he was so weak, and he could never make up his mind; she was strong, and once she had made up her mind, for good or ill, she found it difficult to swerve.

She had made him King of Navarre, but she was bold and independent and herself ruled the province. She had sharply reproved him for what had happened when he had gone to court and had been so rudely treated by the Guises. She had explained to him the peril in which he had put himself, herself, their children and their kingdom. She had seen that the Prince who could work with the Queen Mother was the one who would have the largest say in state affairs. He had hesitated, and the Guises had got there before him.

There had been coolness between them for a short while, but the heat of Jeanne's temper always faded quickly; and Antoine, though he changed his mind again and again, was still her beloved husband. They were lovers yet, and if he needed guidance from her, her help in his career, she must only thank G.o.d that she had the strength to give it.

Now, as she watched him, she thought of the happiness of their life together here in their own province. She, with her beloved children, teaching them herself, delighting in their precocity at their lessons, could have been completely happy. She drew great contentment from the Huguenot faith, though she had not professed her acceptance of it publicly; yet it was known throughout the land of France and Spain that there was refuge for Huguenots in Jeanne's kingdom.

'Antoine,' she said. 'What is it, my love?'

He brought the letter to her and put an arm about her shoulder while they read it together.

Jeanne said promptly: 'You must not go, and certainly Louis must not go.'

'This, dearest Jeanne, is a command. Do you not see that? A command from the King!'

'The King! A sickly boy without a mind of his own. It is a command from the Duke of Guise and his wicked Cardinal brother a call from the Queen Mother. It means: ”Come. Walk into the trap we have prepared for you.” '

'You may be right. No. Certainly I shall not go. I shall tell Louis nothing of this, for he is foolhardy enough for anything.'

But Antoine could not remain of the same mind for long at a time.

'A command from the King must be obeyed. I think, Jeanne, that I should go. They would not dare harm us Princes of the Blood!'

'Princes of the Blood have been murdered ere this,' she reminded him.

The Count of Crussol, the messenger who had brought the letter, a.s.sured Antoine that he had nothing to fear. He could give the word of the King on that.

'But the King,' pointed out Jeanne, 'is not allowed to give his word.'

'You have the word of the Queen Mother.'

'Ah!' cried Jeanne, hot and imprudent. 'Might not the Queen Mother keep this promise as she did that other ... to meet our ministers at Rheims?'

'There are also the words of the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine.'

'Never trust the words of brigands!' cried Jeanne.

And it was Antoine's turn to reprove her.

How impossible it was to continue with the happy life! If they could only live humbly, simply, if they were not of royal blood, how happy they would be! But she must fret against Antoine's indecision and lie against her brusque frankness, and all because they must fear for the children and their kingdom; so they grew angry with each other on account of faults which in a lowlier household would merely have given rise to amus.e.m.e.nt.

Antoine decided that it was necessary to warn Conde of the King's letter and, on receiving his message, Conde, with his wife, the Princess Eleonore, came to Nerac to discuss the matter.

Conde, fearless, longing for adventure, declared there was nothing they could do but answer the summons. No one should say that Conde was afraid. Jeanne was furious with both brothers.