"That you remain quiet, M. de Biron."
"In the a.r.s.enal?"
"In the a.r.s.enal. And do not too openly counteract the King"s will.
That is all."
The Grand Master looked puzzled. "I will give up no one," he said. "No one! Let that be understood."
"The King requires no one."
A pause. Then, "Does M. de Guise know of the offer?" Biron inquired; and his eye grew bright. He hated the Guises and was hated by them. It was _there_ he was a Huguenot.
"He has gone far to-day," Count Hannibal answered drily. "And if no worse come of it should be content. Madame Catherine knows of it."
The Grand Master was aware that Marshal Tavannes depended on the Queen-mother; and he shrugged his shoulders. "Ay, "tis like her policy," he muttered. ""Tis like her!" And pointing his guest to a cushioned chest which stood against the wall, he sat down in a chair beside the table and thought awhile, his brow wrinkled, his eyes dreaming. By-and-by he laughed sourly. "You have lighted the fire," he said, "and would fain I put it out."
"We would have you hinder it spreading."
"You have done the deed and are loth to pay the blood-money. That is it, is it?"
"We prefer to pay it to M. de Biron," Count Hannibal answered civilly.
Again the Grand Master was silent awhile. At length he looked up and fixed Tavannes with eyes keen as steel. "What is behind?" he growled.
"Say, man, what is it? What is behind?"
"If there be aught behind, I do not know it," Tavannes answered steadfastly.
M. de Biron relaxed the fixity of his gaze. "But you said that you had an object?" he returned.
"I had--in being the bearer of the message."
"What was it?"
"My object? To learn two things."
"The first, if it please you?" The Grand Master"s chin stuck out a little, as he spoke.
"Have you in the a.r.s.enal a M. de Tignonville, a gentleman of Poitou?"
"I have not," Biron answered curtly. "The second?"
"Have you here a Huguenot minister?"
"I have not. And if I had I should not give him up," he added firmly.
Tavannes shrugged his shoulders. "I have a use for one," he said carelessly. "But it need not harm him."
"For what, then, do you need him?"
"To marry me."
The other stared. "But you are a Catholic," he said.
"But she is a Huguenot," Tavannes answered.
The Grand Master did not attempt to hide his astonishment. "And she sticks on that?" he exclaimed. "To-day?"
"She sticks on that. To-day."
"To-day? _Nom de Dieu!_ To-day! Well," brushing the matter aside after a pause of bewilderment, "any way, I cannot help her. I have no minister here. If there be aught else I can do for her----"
"Nothing, I thank you," Tavannes answered. "Then it only remains for me to take your answer to the King?" And he rose politely, and taking his mask from the table prepared to a.s.sume it.
M. de Biron gazed at him a moment without speaking, as if he pondered on the answer he should give. At length he nodded, and rang the bell which stood beside him.
"The mask!" he muttered in a low voice as footsteps sounded without.
And, obedient to the hint, Tavannes disguised himself. A second later the officer who had introduced him opened the door and entered.
"Peridol," M. de Biron said--he had risen to his feet--"I have received a message which needs confirmation; and to obtain this I must leave the a.r.s.enal. I am going to the house--you will remember this--of Marshal Tavannes, who will be responsible for my person; in the meantime this gentleman will remain under strict guard in the south chamber upstairs. You will treat him as a hostage, with all respect, and will allow him to preserve his _incognito_. But if I do not return by noon to-morrow, you will deliver him to the men below, who will know how to deal with him."
Count Hannibal made no attempt to interrupt him, nor did he betray the discomfiture which he undoubtedly felt. But as the Grand Master paused, "M. de Biron," he said, in a voice harsh and low, "you will answer to me for this!" And his eyes glittered through the slits in the mask.
"Possibly, but not to-day or to-morrow!" Biron replied, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. "Peridol! see the gentleman bestowed as I have ordered, and then return to me. Monsieur," with a bow, half courteous, half ironical, "let me commend to you the advantages of silence and your mask." And he waved his hand in the direction of the door.
A moment Count Hannibal hesitated. He was in the heart of a hostile fortress where the resistance of a single man armed to the teeth must have been futile; and he was unarmed, save for a poniard.
Nevertheless, for a moment the impulse to spring on Biron, and with the dagger at his throat to make his life the price of a safe pa.s.sage, was strong. Then--for with the warp of a harsh and pa.s.sionate character were interwrought an odd shrewdness and some things little suspected--he resigned himself. Bowing gravely, he turned with dignity, and in silence followed the officer from the room.
Peridol had two men with lanterns in waiting at the door. From one of these the lieutenant took the light, and, with an air at once sullen and deferential, led the way up the stone staircase to the floor over that in which M. de Biron had his lodging. Tavannes followed; the two guards came last, carrying the second lantern. At the head of the staircase, whence a bare pa.s.sage ran north and south, the procession turned right-handed, and, pa.s.sing two doors, halted before the third and last, which faced them at the end of the pa.s.sage. The lieutenant unlocked it with a key which he took from a hook beside the doorpost.
Then, holding up his light, he invited his charge to enter.
The room was not small, but it was low in the roof, and prison-like, it had bare walls and smoke-marks on the ceiling. The window, set in a deep recess, the floor of which rose a foot above that of the room, was unglazed; and through the gloomy orifice the night wind blew in, laden even on that August evening with the dank mist of the river flats. A table, two stools, and a truckle bed without straw or covering made up the furniture; but Peridol, after glancing round, ordered one of the men to fetch a truss of straw and the other to bring up a pitcher of wine. While they were gone Tavannes and he stood silently waiting, until, observing that the captive"s eyes sought the window, the lieutenant laughed.
"No bars?" he said. "No, monsieur, and no need of them. You will not go by that road, bars or no bars."
"What is below?" Count Hannibal asked carelessly. "The river?"
"Yes, monsieur," with a grin, "but not water. Mud, and six feet of it, soft as Christmas porridge, but not so sweet. I"ve known two puppies thrown in under this window that did not weigh more than a fat pullet apiece. One was gone before you could count fifty, and the other did not live thrice as long--nor would have lasted that time, but that it fell on the first and clung to it."
Tavannes dismissed the matter with a shrug, and, drawing his cloak about him, set a stool against the wall and sat down. The men who brought in the wine and the bundle of straw were inquisitive, and would have loitered, scanning him stealthily; but Peridol hurried them away. The lieutenant himself stayed only to cast a glance round the room and to mutter that he would return when his lord returned; then, with a "Good night" which said more for his manners than his good will, he followed them out. A moment later the grating of the key in the lock and the sound of the bolts as they sped home told Tavannes that he was a prisoner.
CHAPTER XIV.
TOO SHORT A SPOON.