The Black Douglas, Samuel Rutherford Crockett [best books under 200 pages .TXT] 📗

the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modest maid; "I thank you, indeed. You do me honour far above my desert. Still, after all, we work for one end. You have, it is true, the nobler motive,--the lives of those you love; but I the deadlier,--the death of one I hate! Hearken!"
She paused as if to gather strength for that which she had to reveal, and then, reaching her hands out, she motioned the three men to gather more closely about her, as if the blue Atlantic waves or the red boles of the pine trees might carry the matter.
"Listen," she said, "the end comes fast--faster than any know, save I, to whom for my sins the gift of second sight hath been given. I who speak to you am of Brittany and of the House of De Thouars. To one of us in each generation descends this abhorred gift of second sight. And I, because as a child it was my lot to meet one wholly given over to evil, have seen more and clearer than all that have gone before me. But now I do foresee the end of the wickedest and most devilish soul ever prisoned within the body of man."
As she spoke the heads of the three Scots bent lower and closer to catch every word, for the voice of the Lady Sybilla was more like the cooing of a mating turtle as it answers its comrade than that of a woman betrayed, denouncing vengeance and death upon him whom her soul hated.
"Be of good heart, then, and depart as I shall bid you. None can help or hinder here at Machecoul but I alone. Be sure that at the worst the unnameable shall not happen to the maids. For in me there is the power to slay the evil-doer. But slay I will not unless it be to keep the lives of the maids. Because I desire for Gilles de Retz a fate greater, more terrible, more befitting iniquity such as the world hath never heard spoken of since it arose from the abyss.
"And this is it given to me to bring upon him whom my soul hateth," she went on. "I have seen the hempen cord by which he shall hang. I have seen the fire through which his soul shall pass to its own place. Through me this fate shall come upon him suddenly in one night."
Her face lighted up with an inner glow, and shone translucent in the darkening of the day and the dusk of the trees, as if the fair veil of flesh wavered and changed about the vengeful soul within.
"And now," she went on after a pause, "I bid you, gentlemen of the house of Douglas, to depart to John, Duke of Brittany, and having found him to lay this paper before him. It contains the number and the names of those who have died in the castles of de Retz. It shows in what hidden places the bones of these slaughtered innocents may be found. Clamour in his ear for justice in the name of the King of France, and if he will not hear, then in the name of the folk of Brittany. And if still because of his kinship he will not listen, go to the Bishop of Nantes, who hates Gilles de Retz. Better than any he knows how to stir the people, and he will send with you trusty men to cause the country to rise in rebellion. Then they will overturn all the castles of de Retz, and the hidden things shall come to light. This do, and for this time depart from Machecoul, and entrust me (as indeed you must) with the honour and lives of those you love. I will keep them with mine own until destruction pass upon him who is outcast from God, and whom now his own fiend from hell hath deserted."
Then, having sworn to do her bidding, the three Scots conducted the Lady Sybilla with honour and observance to her white palfrey, and like a spirit she vanished into the sea mists which had sifted up from the west, going back to the drear Castle of Machecoul, but bearing with her the burden of her revenge.


CHAPTER LIV
THE CROSS UNDER THE APRON
The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an unholy lustre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles with the black. In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about, wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible baron.
The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not been wanting.
Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger, a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast. With a great cry he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in the depth of the forest.
Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye, was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the Castle of Machecoul.
So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode together all that day, sullen anger burning in their hearts. And one calling himself the servant of the Bishop of Nantes went about among them, and his words were as knives, sharp and bitter beyond belief. And ever as he spoke the men turned them about till they faced Machecoul. Their lips moved like those of a Moslemite who says his prayers towards Mecca. And the words they uttered were indeed prayers of solemnest import.
With his usual devotion at such seasons, Gilles de Retz had attended service thrice that day in his Chapel of the Holy Innocents. His behaviour had been marked by intense devoutness. An excessive tenderness of conscience had characterised his confessions to Pere Blouyn, his spiritual director-in-ordinary. He confessed as his most flagrant sin that his thoughts were overmuch set on the vanities of the world, and that he had even sometimes been tempted of the devil to question the right of Holy Church herself to settle all questions according to the will of her priests and prelates.
Whereupon Pere Blouyn, with suave correctness of judgment, had pointed out wherein his master erred; but also cautioned him against that undue tenderness of conscience natural to one with his exalted position and high views of duty and life. Finally the marshal had received absolution.
In the late afternoon the Lord of Retz commanded the fire to be laid ready for lighting in his chamber aloft in the keep of Machecoul, and set himself down to listen to the singing of the choir, which, under the guidance of Precentor Renouf, rehearsed for him the sweetest hymns recently written for the choir of the Holy Father at Rome. For there the marshal's choir-master had been trained, and with its leader he still kept up a correspondence upon kindred interests.
Gilles de Retz, as he sat under the late blooming roses in the afternoon sunshine of the autumn of western France, appeared to the casual eye one of the most noble seigneurs and the most enlightened in the world. He affected a costume already semiecclesiastic as a token of his ultimate intention to enter holy orders. It seemed indeed as if the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek the heavenly.
There, upon a chair set within the cloisters, in a place which the sunshine touched most lovingly and where it lingered longest, he sat, nodding his head to the sound of the sweet singing, and bowing low at each mention of the name of Jesus (as the custom is)--a still, meditative, almost saintly man. Upon the lap of his furred robe (for, after all, it was a sunshine with a certain shrewd wintriness in it) lay an illuminated copy of the Holy Gospels; and sometimes as he listened to the choir-boys singing, he glanced therein, and read of the little children to whom belongs the kingdom. Upon occasion he lifted the book also, and looked with pleasure at the pictured cherubs who cheered the way of the Master Jerusalemwards with strewn palm leaves and shouted hosannas.
And ever sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single voice--that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite sweetness the words of blessing:
"_Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
And forbid them not;
For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven._"
And as the boy's voice welled out, clear and thrilling as the song of an upward pulsing lark, the tears ran down the face of Gilles de Retz.
God knows why. Perhaps it was some glint of his own innocent childhood--some half-dimmed memory of his happily dead mother. Perhaps--but enough. Gilles de Laval de Retz went up the turret stair to find Poitou and Gilles de Sille on guard on either side the portals which closed his chamber.
"Is all ready?" he asked, though the tears were scarcely dry on his cheeks.
They bowed before him to the ground.
"All is ready, lord and master," they said as with one voice.
"And Prelati?"
"He is in waiting."
"And La Meffraye," he went on, "has she arrived?"
"La Meffraye has arrived," they said; "all goes fortunately."
"Good!" said Gilles de Retz, and shedding his furred monkish cloak carelessly from off his shoulders, he went within.
Poitou and Gilles de Sille both reached to catch the mantle ere it fell. As they did so their hands met and touched. And at the meeting of each other's flesh they started and drew apart. Their eyes encountered furtively and were instantly withdrawn. Then, having hung up the cloak, with pallid countenances and lips white and tremulous, they slowly followed the marshal within.
* * * * *
"Sybilla de Thouars, as you are in my power, so I bid you work my will!"
It was the deep, stern voice of the Marshal de Retz which spoke. The Lady Sybilla lay back in a great chair with her eyes closed, breathing slowly and gently through her parted lips. Messire Gilles stood before her with his hands joined palm to palm and his white fingertips almost touching the girl's brow.
"Work my will and tell me what you see!"
Her hands were clasped under a light silken apron which she wore descending from her neck and caught in a loose loop behind her gown. The fingers were firmly netted one over the other and clutched between them was a golden crucifix.
The girl was praying, as one prays who dares not speak.
"O God, who didst hang on this cross--keep now my soul. Condemn it afterwards, but help me to keep it this night. Deliver