Count Hannibal: Chapter 27

Chapter 27

THE BLACK TOWN.

It was late evening when, riding wearily on jaded horses, they came to
the outskirts of Angers, and saw before them the term of their journey.
The glow of sunset had faded, but the sky was still warm with the last
hues of day; and against its opal light the huge mass of the Angevin
castle, which even in sunshine rises dark and forbidding above the
Mayenne, stood up black and sharply defined. Below it, on both banks of
the river, the towers and spires of the city soared up from a sombre
huddle of ridge-roofs, broken here by a round-headed gateway, crumbling
and pigeon-haunted, that dated from St. Louis, and there by the gaunt
arms of a windmill.

The city lay dark under a light sky, keeping well its secrets. Thousands
were out of doors enjoying the evening coolness in alley and court, yet
it betrayed the life which pulsed in its arteries only by the low murmur
which rose from it. Nevertheless, the Countess at sight of its roofs
tasted the first moment of happiness which had been hers that day. She
might suffer, but she had saved. Those roofs would thank her! In that
murmur were the voices of women and children she had redeemed! At the
sight and at the thought a wave of love and tenderness swept all
bitterness from her breast. A profound humility, a boundless
thankfulness took possession of her. Her head sank lower above her
horse's mane; but this time it sank in reverence, not in shame.

Could she have known what was passing beneath those roofs which night was
blending in a common gloom--could she have read the thoughts which at
that moment paled the cheeks of many a stout burgher, whose gabled house
looked on the great square, she had been still more thankful. For in
attics and back rooms women were on their knees at that hour, praying
with feverish eyes; and in the streets men--on whom their fellows, seeing
the winding-sheet already at the chin, gazed askance--smiled, and showed
brave looks abroad, while their hearts were sick with fear.

For darkly, no man knew how, the news had come to Angers. It had been
known, more or less, for three days. Men had read it in other men's
eyes. The tongue of a scold, the sneer of an injured woman had spread
it, the birds of the air had carried it. From garret window to garret
window across the narrow lanes of the old town it had been whispered at
dead of night; at convent grilles, and in the timber-yards beside the
river. Ten thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, it was
rumoured, had perished in Paris. In Orleans, all. In Tours this man's
sister; at Saumur that man's son. Through France the word had gone forth
that the Huguenots must die; and in the busy town the same roof-tree
sheltered fear and hate, rage and cupidity. On one side of the party-
wall murder lurked fierce-eyed; on the other, the victim lay watching the
latch, and shaking at a step. Strong men tasted the bitterness of death,
and women clasping their babes to their breasts smiled sickly into
children's eyes.

The signal only was lacking. It would come, said some, from Saumur,
where Montsoreau, the Duke of Anjou's Lieutenant-Governor and a Papist,
had his quarters. From Paris, said others, directly from the King. It
might come at any hour now, in the day or in the night; the magistrates,
it was whispered, were in continuous session, awaiting its coming. No
wonder that from lofty gable windows, and from dormers set high above the
tiles, haggard faces looked northward and eastward, and ears sharpened by
fear imagined above the noises of the city the ring of the iron shoes
that carried doom.

Doubtless the majority desired--as the majority in France have always
desired--peace. But in the purlieus about the cathedral and in the lanes
where the sacristans lived, in convent parlours and college courts, among
all whose livelihood the new faith threatened, was a stir as of a hive
deranged. Here was grumbling against the magistrates--why wait? There,
stealthy plannings and arrangements; everywhere a grinding of weapons and
casting of slugs. Old grudges, new rivalries, a scholar's venom, a
priest's dislike, here was final vent for all. None need leave this
feast unsated!

It was a man of this class, sent out for the purpose, who first espied
Count Hannibal's company approaching. He bore the news into the town,
and by the time the travellers reached the city gate, the dusky street
within, on which lights were beginning to twinkle from booths and
casements, was alive with figures running to meet them and crying the
news as they ran. The travellers, weary and road-stained, had no sooner
passed under the arch than they found themselves the core of a great
crowd which moved with them and pressed about them; now unbonneting, and
now calling out questions, and now shouting, "Vive le Roi! Vive le Roi!"
Above the press, windows burst into light; and over all, the quaint
leaning gables of the old timbered houses looked down on the hurry and
tumult.

They passed along a narrow street in which the rabble, hurrying at Count
Hannibal's bridle, and often looking back to read his face, had much ado
to escape harm; along this street and before the yawning doors of a great
church whence a breath heavy with incense and burning wax issued to meet
them. A portion of the congregation had heard the tumult and struggled
out, and now stood close-packed on the steps under the double vault of
the portal. Among them the Countess's eyes, as she rode by, a sturdy man-
at-arms on either hand, caught and held one face. It was the face of a
tall, lean man in dusty black; and though she did not know him she seemed
to have an equal attraction for him; for as their eyes met he seized the
shoulder of the man next him and pointed her out. And something in the
energy of the gesture, or in the thin lips and malevolent eyes of the man
who pointed, chilled the Countess's blood and shook her, she knew not
why.

Until then, she had known no fear save of her husband. But at that a
sense of the force and pressure of the crowd--as well as of the fierce
passions, straining about her, which a word might unloose--broke upon
her; and looking to the stern men on either side she fancied that she
read anxiety in their faces.

She glanced behind. Boot to boot, the Count's men came on, pressing
round her women and shielding them from the exuberance of the throng. In
their faces too she thought that she traced uneasiness. What wonder if
the scenes through which she had passed in Paris began to recur to her
mind, and shook nerves already overwrought?

She began to tremble. "Is there--danger?" she muttered, speaking in a
low voice to Bigot, who rode on her right hand. "Will they do anything?"

The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the saddle," he said, nodding
towards his master, who rode a pace in front of them, his reins loose.
"There be some here know him!" Bigot continued, in his drawling tone.
"And more will know him if they break line. Have no fear, Madame, he
will bring you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots?" he continued,
turning from her and addressing a rogue who, holding his stirrup, was
shouting the cry till he was crimson. "Then why not away, and--"

"The King! The King's word and leave!" the man answered.

"Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward, while he waved his cap;
"have we the King's leave?"

"You'll bide _his_ leave!" the Norman retorted, indicating the Count with
his thumb. "Or 'twill be up with you--on the three-legged horse!"

"But he comes from the King!" the man panted.

"To be sure. To be sure!"

"Then--"

"You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot answered, rather it seemed for
his own satisfaction than the other's enlightenment. "You'll all bide
it, you dogs!" he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye over the
weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are we? And not too soon,
either."

He fell silent as they entered an open space, overlooked on one side by
the dark facade of the cathedral, on the other three sides by houses more
or less illumined. The rabble swept into this open space with them and
before them, filled much of it in an instant, and for a while eddied and
swirled this way and that, thrust onward by the worshippers who had
issued from the church and backwards by those who had been first in the
square, and had no mind to be hustled out of hearing. A stranger,
confused by the sea of excited faces, and deafened by the clamour of
"Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with cries against the Huguenots,
might have fancied that the whole city was arrayed before him. But he
would have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed--and a dangerous
scum--frothed and foamed and spat under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here
and there among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure of a priest
moved to and fro; or a Benedictine, or some smooth-faced acolyte egged on
to the work he dared not do. But the decent burghers were not there.
They lay bolted in their houses; while the magistrates, with little heart
to do aught except bow to the mob--or other their masters for the time
being--shook in their council chamber.

There is not a city of France which has not seen it; which has not known
the moment when the mass impended, and it lay with one man to start it or
stay its course. Angers within its houses heard the clamour, and from
the child, clinging to its mother's skirt, and wondering why she wept, to
the Provost, trembled, believing that the hour had come. The Countess
heard it too, and understood it. She caught the savage note in the voice
of the mob--that note which means danger--and, her heart beating wildly,
she looked to her husband. Then, fortunately for her, fortunately for
Angers, it was given to all to see that in Count Hannibal's saddle sat a
man.

He raised his hand for silence, and in a minute or two--not at once, for
the square was dusky--it was obtained. He rose in his stirrups, and
bared his head.

"I am from the King!" he cried, throwing his voice to all parts of the
crowd. "And this is his Majesty's pleasure and good will! That every
man hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or worse! And at
noon his further pleasure will be known! Vive le Roi!"

And he covered his head again.

"Vive le Roi!" cried a number of the foremost. But their shouts were
feeble and half-hearted, and were quickly drowned in a rising murmur of
discontent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is that all? Is
there no more? Down with the Huguenots!" rose from all parts. Presently
these cries became merged in a persistent call, which had its origin, as
far as could be discovered, in the darkest corner of the square. A call
for "Montsoreau! Montsoreau! Give us Montsoreau!"

With another man, or had Tavannes turned or withdrawn, or betrayed the
least anxiety, words had become actions, disorder a riot; and that in the
twinkling of an eye. But Count Hannibal, sitting his horse, with his
handful of riders behind him, watched the crowd, as little moved by it as
the Armed Knight of Notre Dame. Only once did he say a word. Then,
raising his hand as before to gain a hearing--

"You ask for Montsoreau?" he thundered. "You will have Montfaucon if you
do not quickly go to your homes!"

At which, and at the glare of his eye, the more timid took fright.
Feeling his gaze upon them, seeing that he had no intention of
withdrawing, they began to sneak away by ones and twos. Soon others
missed them and took the alarm, and followed. A moment and scores were
streaming away through lanes and alleys and along the main street. At
last the bolder and more turbulent found themselves a remnant. They
glanced uneasily at one another and at Tavannes, took fright in their
turn, and plunging into the current hastened away, raising now and then
as they passed through the streets a cry of "Vive Montsoreau!
Montsoreau!"--which was not without its menace for the morrow.

Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more than half a dozen groups
remained in the open. Then he gave the word to dismount; for, so far,
even the Countess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the movement
which their retreat into the inn must have caused should be misread by
the mob. Last of all he dismounted himself, and with lights going before
him and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak and pistols, he
escorted the Countess into the house. Not many minutes had elapsed since
he had called for silence; but long before he reached the chamber looking
over the square from the first floor, in which supper was being set for
them, the news had flown through the length and breadth of Angers that
for this night the danger was past. The hawk had come to Angers, and lo!
it was a dove.

Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows and looked out. In the
room, which was well lighted, were people of the house, going to and fro,
setting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the hearth--which held
its summer dressing of green boughs--while her woman held water for her
to wash, the scene recalled with painful vividness the meal at which she
had been present on the morning of the St. Bartholomew--the meal which
had ushered in her troubles. Naturally her eyes went to her husband, her
mind to the horror in which she had held him then; and with a kind of
shock--perhaps because the last few minutes had shown him in a new
light--she compared her old opinion of him with that which, much as she
feared him, she now entertained.

This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, if at all, he had
acted in a way to justify that horror and that opinion. He had treated
her--brutally; he had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck her.
And yet--and yet Madame felt that she had moved so far from the point
which she had once occupied that the old attitude was hard to understand.
Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, much as she still
dreaded him, that she had looked with those feelings of repulsion.

She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove to see two men in one,
when he turned from the window. Absorbed in thought, she had forgotten
her occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her half-dried hands.
Before she knew what he was doing he was at her side; he bade the woman
hold the bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and without
looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on the farther end of the
towel which she was still using.

She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more intimate and more
familiar than had ever marked their intercourse, set her blood running
strangely. When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his
spur-leathers, she stepped forward.

"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden and unaccountable
impulse. And as she knelt, she shook her hair about her face to hide its
colour.

"Nay, Madame, but you will soil your fingers!" he said coldly.

"Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And though her fingers shook,
she pursued and performed her task.

When she rose he thanked her; and then the devil in the man, or the
Nemesis he had provoked when he took her by force from another--the
Nemesis of jealousy, drove him to spoil all.

"And for whose sake, Madame?" he added, with a jeer; "mine or M. de
Tignonville's?" And with a glance between jest and earnest, he tried to
read her thoughts.

She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and the hot colour fled her
cheeks.

"For his sake!" she said, with a shiver of pain. "That his life may be
spared!" And she stood back humbly, like a beaten dog. Though, indeed,
it was for the sake of Angers, in thankfulness for the past rather than
in any desperate hope of propitiating her husband, that she had done it!

Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But before he could answer,
the host, bowing to the floor, came to announce that all was ready, and
that the Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent, was in
waiting below.

"Let him come up!" Tavannes answered, grave and frowning. "And see you,
close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on us. Ah!" as the Provost,
a burly man, with a face framed for jollity, but now pale and long,
entered and approached him with many salutations. "How comes it, M. le
Prevot--you are the Prevot, are you not?"

"Yes, M. le Comte."

"How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted to meet in the streets?
And that at my entrance, though I come unannounced, I find half of the
city gathered together?"

The Provost stared. "Respect, M. le Comte," he said, "for His Majesty's
letters, of which you are the bearer, no doubt induced some to come
together."

"Who said I brought letters?"

"Who--?"

"Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal repeated in a strenuous
voice. And he ground his chair half about and faced the astonished
magistrate. "Who said I brought letters?"

"Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was everywhere yesterday--"

"Yesterday?"

"Last night, at latest--that letters were coming from the King."

"By my hand?"

"By your lordship's hand--whose name is so well known here," the
magistrate added, in the hope of clearing the great man's brow.

Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will be better known by-and-by,"
he said. "See you, sirrah, there is some practice here. What is this
cry of Montsoreau that I hear?"

"Your lordship knows that he is His Grace's lieutenant-governor in
Saumur."

"I know that, man. But is he here?"

"He was at Saumur yesterday, and 'twas rumoured three days back that he
was coming here to extirpate the Huguenots. Then word came of your
lordship and of His Majesty's letters, and 'twas thought that M. de
Montsoreau would not come, his authority being superseded."

"I see. And now your rabble think that they would prefer M. Montsoreau.
That is it, is it?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and opened his hands.

"Pigs!" he said. And having spat on the floor, he looked apologetically
at the lady. "True pigs!"

"What connections has he here?" Tavannes asked.

"He is a brother of my lord the Bishop's vicar, who arrived yesterday."

"With a rout of shaven heads who have been preaching and stirring up the
town!" Count Hannibal cried, his face growing red. "Speak, man; is it
so? But I'll be sworn it is!"

"There has been preaching," the Provost answered reluctantly.

"Montsoreau may count his brother, then, for one. He is a fool, but with
a knave behind him, and a knave who has no cause to love us! And the
Castle? 'Tis held by one of M. de Montsoreau's creatures, I take it?"

"Yes, my lord."

"With what force?"

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, and looked doubtfully at Badelon,
who was keeping the door. Tavannes followed the glance with his usual
impatience. "Mon Dieu, you need not look at him!" he cried. "He has
sacked St. Peter's and singed the Pope's beard with a holy candle! He
has been served on the knee by Cardinals; and is Turk or Jew, or monk or
Huguenot as I please. And Madame"--for the Provost's astonished eyes,
after resting awhile on the old soldier's iron visage, had passed to
her--"is Huguenot, so you need have no fear of her! There, speak, man,"
with impatience, "and cease to think of your own skin!"

The Provost drew a deep breath, and fixed his small eyes on Count
Hannibal.

"If I knew, my lord, what you--why, my own sister's son"--he paused, his
face began to work, his voice shook--"is a Huguenot! Ay, my lord, a
Huguenot! And they know it!" he continued, a flush of rage augmenting
the emotion which his countenance betrayed. "Ay, they know it! And they
push me on at the Council, and grin behind my back; Lescot, who was
Provost two years back, and would match his son with my daughter; and
Thuriot, who prints for the University! They nudge one another, and egg
me on, till half the city thinks it is I who would kill the Huguenots!
I!" Again his voice broke. "And my own sister's son a Huguenot! And my
girl at home white-faced for--for his sake."

Tavannes scanned the man shrewdly. "Perhaps she is of the same way of
thinking?" he said.

The Provost started, and lost one half of his colour. "God forbid!" he
cried, "saving Madame's presence! Who says so, my lord, lies!"

"Ay, lies not far from the truth."

"My lord!"

"Pish, man, Lescot has said it, and will act on it. And Thuriot, who
prints for the University! Would you 'scape them? You would? Then
listen to me. I want but two things. First, how many men has
Montsoreau's fellow in the Castle? Few, I know, for he is a niggard, and
if he spends, he spends the Duke's pay."

"Twelve. But five can hold it."

"Ay, but twelve dare not leave it! Let them stew in their own broth! And
now for the other matter. See, man, that before daybreak three gibbets,
with a ladder and two ropes apiece, are set up in the square. And let
one be before this door. You understand? Then let it be done! The
rest," he added with a ferocious smile, "you may leave to me."

The magistrate nodded rather feebly. "Doubtless," he said, his eye
wandering here and there, "there are rogues in Angers. And for rogues
the gibbet! But saving your presence, my lord, it is a question
whether--"

But M. de Tavannes' patience was exhausted. "Will you do it?" he roared.
"That is the question. And the only question."

The Provost jumped, he was so startled. "Certainly, my lord, certainly!"
he muttered humbly. "Certainly, I will!" And bowing frequently, but
saying no more, he backed himself out of the room.

Count Hannibal laughed grimly after his fashion, and doubtless thought
that he had seen the last of the magistrate for that night. Great was
his wrath, therefore, when, less than a minute later--and before Bigot
had carved for him--the door opened, and the Provost appeared again. He
slid in, and without giving the courage he had gained on the stairs time
to cool, plunged into his trouble.

"It stands this way, M. le Comte," he bleated. "If I put up the gibbets
and a man is hanged, and you have letters from the King, 'tis a rogue the
less, and no harm done. But if you have no letters from His Majesty,
then it is on my shoulders they will put it, and 'twill be odd if they do
not find a way to hang me to right him."

Count Hannibal smiled grimly. "And your sister's son?" he sneered. "And
your girl who is white-faced for his sake, and may burn on the same
bonfire with him? And--"

"Mercy! Mercy!" the wretched Provost cried. And he wrung his hands.
"Lescot and Thuriot--"

"Perhaps we may hang Lescot and Thuriot--"

"But I see no way out," the Provost babbled. "No way! No way!"

"I am going to show you one," Tavannes retorted. "If the gibbets are not
in place by sunrise, I shall hang you from this window. That is one way
out; and you'll be wise to take the other! For the rest and for your
comfort, if I have no letters, it is not always to paper that the King
commits his inmost heart."

The magistrate bowed. He quaked, he doubted, but he had no choice.

"My lord," he said, "I put myself in your hands. It shall be done,
certainly it shall be done. But, but--" and shaking his head in
foreboding, he turned to the door. At the last moment, when he was
within a pace of it, the Countess rose impulsively to her feet. She
called to him.

"M. le Prevot, a minute, if you please," she said. "There may be trouble
to-morrow; your daughter may be in some peril. You will do well to send
her to me. My lord"--and on the word her voice, uncertain before, grew
full and steady--"will see that I am safe. And she will be safe with
me."

The Provost saw before him only a gracious lady, moved by a
thoughtfulness unusual in persons of her rank. He was at no pains to
explain the flame in her cheek, or the soft light which glowed in her
eyes, as she looked at him across her formidable husband. He was only
profoundly grateful--moved even to tears. Humbly thanking her, he
accepted her offer for his child, and withdrew wiping his eyes. When he
was gone, and the door had closed behind him, Tavannes turned to the
Countess, who still kept her feet.

"You are very confident this evening," he sneered. "Gibbets do not
frighten you, it seems, madame. Perhaps if you knew for whom the one
before the door is intended?"

She met his look with a searching gaze, and spoke with a ring of defiance
in her tone. "I do not believe it!" she said. "I do not believe it! You
who save Angers will not destroy him!" And then her woman's mood
changing, with courage and colour ebbing together, "Oh no, you will not!
You will not!" she wailed. And she dropped on her knees before him, and
holding up her clasped hands, "God will put it in your heart to spare
him--and me!"

He rose with a stifled oath, took two steps from her, and in a tone
hoarse and constrained, "Go!" he said. "Go, or sit! Do you hear,
Madame? You try my patience too far!"

But when she had gone his face was radiant. He had brought her, he had
brought all, to the point at which he aimed. To-morrow his triumph
awaited him. To-morrow he who had cast her down would raise her up.

He did not foresee what a day would bring forth.

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