The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion Page 17

  CHAPTER XVI.

  LA REINE MARGOT

  The Bearnais was too wise to venture so near the wolf's den as Loches orTours. The conference, therefore, took place in the little town ofArgenton, perched along either side of the Creuse, a huddle ofwooden-fronted houses cascading down to a clear blue river, everybalcony filled with flowers and fluttering that day with banners.

  Catherine, the Queen-Mother, was to travel from Chartres to representher son King Henry III. of Valois, of Poland, and of France. Henry theBearnais rode over from his entrenched camp at Beauregard with a retinueof Huguenot gentlemen, whose plain dark armour and weather-beatenfeatures showed more acquaintance with camp than with court.

  The Bearnais, as usual, proved himself gay, kindly, debonnaire. TheQueen-Mother (also as usual) was ambassador for her slothful son,conscious that her last summer was waning, mostly doing her travellingin a litter. Catherine de Medici never forgot for a moment that she wasthe centre round which forty years of intrigue had revolved. The wife ofone king of France, the mother of three others, she played her part asin her youngest days. With death grappling at her heart, she surroundedherself with the flower of the youth and beauty of Italy and France,laughing with the gayest and ready with smile and gracious word forking or knave.

  The deportment of the Bearnais was in strong contrast with that of hisHuguenot suite. The King of Navarre made merry with all the world. Hewas ever the centre of a bright and changeful group of maids-of-honourto the Queen-Mother, with whom he jested and laughed freely, till Rosnywhispered behind his hand to D'Aubigne, "If this goes on, we shall makebut a poor treaty of it!"

  And to him D'Aubigne replied grimly, "I will wager that my Lord Duked'Epernon looks well to that."

  "No," said Rosny shortly, "the old vixen is the sly renard."

  Soon the festival ran its blithest. The Queen-Mother had withdrawnherself, possibly to repose, certainly to plot. With D'Epernon and themaids-of-honour the Bearnais remained, our Abbe John by his side,laughing with the merriest. Turenne and the other Huguenot veteransbrooded sullenly in the background, seeing matters go badly, but notable to help it. Afterwards--well, they had a way all their own ofspeaking their minds. And the brave, good-humoured king would heed themtoo, in nowise growing angry with their freedoms. But, alas! by thattime the steed would be stolen, the treaty signed, and the Medici andher maids-of-dishonour well on the way to Chartres.

  The question was, whether or not Henry III. would throw himself whollyinto the hands of the League at the forthcoming Parliament of Blois, orif, by a secret compact with the Bearnais, the gentlemen of the HuguenotGascon provinces would attend to support the royal authority.

  "I shall go, if our Bearnais commands me," said Turenne; "but I wagerthey will dye the Loire as red as ever they did the Seine onBartholomew's Day--aye, and fringe the Chateau with us, as they did atAmboise. These Guises do not forget their ancient tricks."

  "And right pretty you would look, my good Lord Turenne, your frostybeard wagging in the wind and a raven perched on your bald pate!"

  "If I were in your shoes, I would not talk so freely either of beards orof baldness, D'Aubigne," growled Turenne. "I mind well when a certainclever lad had no more than the beard of a rabbit, which only comes outat night for fear of the dogs!"

  "It is strange," said D'Aubigne, not in the least offended with hiscomrade, "that he who has no fear of the swords, should grow weak at thefluttering of a kerchief or before the artful carelessness of aneck-ribbon."

  "Not strange at all," said Turenne; "is he not a man and a Bearnais?Besides, being a Bourbon, he will pay those the best to whom he owesleast. And we, who have loved him as we never loved father or mother,wife or child, will be sent back to the chimney-corner with our thumbsto suck!"

  "Aye, because he is sure of us!" retorted D'Aubigne gloomily,unconsciously prefiguring a day when he should sit, an exile in aforeign town, eating his heart out, and writing a great book to thepraise of an ungrateful, or perhaps forgetful master.

  "The most curious thing of all," said Rosny, "is that we shall alwayslove him--put down his fickleness to the account of others, cherish himas a deceived woman does the man from whom she cannot wholly tear herheart!"

  "Yes," cried a new voice, as a red hassock of hair showed itself overthe brown Capuchin's robe, "these things will we do--some of us inexile, all in sorrow, some in rags, and some in motley----"

  He opened the robe wider, and under the stained brown the jester'smotley met their eyes.

  "Who is this fool who mixes so freely in the councils of his betters?"cried Turenne. "Is there never a wooden horse and a provost-marshal inthis--this ball-room?"

  But Rosny, whose business it was to know all things, had had dealingswith Jean-aux-Choux.

  "It is the Fool of the Three Henries!" he whispered, "a wise man, theysay--bachelor of Geneva, a deacon at the trade of theology, and allthat!"

  "I see nothing for it," D'Aubigne interrupted drily, "but that we shouldagree to put all three Henries into motley, and set Jean-aux-Choux onthe throne!"

  "Speak your mind plainly, Jean-aux-Choux," cried Turenne peremptorily;"we are none of us of the Three Henries. And we will bear no fooling.What is your message to us--Sir Fool with the Death's Head? Out with it,and briefly."

  Jean-aux-Choux waved his hand in the direction of the bridge ofGargilesse.

  "Yonder--yonder," he said, "is your answer coming to you!"

  Beyond the crowded roofs of the old town, thatched and tiled, the whitetrack to Gargilesse and Croizant meandered amid the sparse and sunburntvegetation of autumn. Sparks of light, stars seen at noonday, began todance behind the little broomy knolls, where the pods were cracking openmerrily in the heat of the sun.

  "They are spears," cried the well-advised veterans of the south, men ofthe old Huguenot guard. "Who comes? None from that direction to do usany good!"

  Then Rosny, who, in moments of action, could make every one afraid ofhim, with his fair skin and the false air of innocence on his face, inwhich two blue eyes strange and stern were set, rode up to the King and,bidding him leave ribbons and sashes to give his mind for a moment tosword-points, he indicated, without an unnecessary word, the cavalcadewhich approached from the south.

  Henry of Navarre, who was never angered by a just rebuke, instantly leftthe ladies with whom he had been jesting, and jumping on horseback, roderight up to the top of a steep bank, which commanded the bridge by whichthe horsemen must cross.

  There he remained for a long while, none daring to speak further to him.For again, in a moment, he had become the war-captain. Though not verytall when on foot, the Bearnais sat his horse like a centaur, and it wassaid of him, that the fiercer the fray, the closer Henry gripped hisknees, and the looser the rein with which he rode into the smother.

  "Why," he cried, setting his gloved hands on either hip, "it isMargot--my wife Margot, with another retinue of silks and furbelows!"

  And the Bearnais laughed aloud.

  "Check and checkmate for the old apothecary's daughter," he chuckled."After all, our little Margot is _spirituelle_, though she and I do notget on together."

  And setting spurs to his charger, he rode on far ahead of all hisgentlemen to welcome the Queen of Navarre at the bridge-head ofArgenton. There he dismounted, and throwing the reins to the nearestgroom, he walked to the bridle of a lady, who, fair, fresh, and smiling,came ambling easily up on a white Arab.

  It was Marguerite of Valois, his wife, who five years ago had possessedherself of the strong castle of Usson in Auvergne. Sole daughter of oneking of France, sole sister of three others, and wife of the King ofNavarre, Marguerite of Valois had been a spoiled beauty from herearliest years. The division of blame is no easy matter, but certainlythe Bearnais was not the right man to tame and keep a butterfly-spiritlike that of "La Reine Margot."

  The marriage had been made and finished in the terrible days whichpreceded the Saint Bartholomew. The two Queens of France and Navarre hadthe business in hand. It had been bapti
sed in torrents of Protestantblood on that fatal night when the Guise ladies watched at theirwindows, while beneath the Leaguers silently bound the white crosses ontheir brows. Indeed, from the side of Catherine de Medici, the marriageof Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois had been arranged with thesingle proper intent of bringing Coligny, Conde, and the other greatHuguenots to the shambles prepared for them.

  It served its purpose well; but when her mother, Catherine de Medici,and her royal brothers would gladly have broken off the marriage,Margot's will was the firmest of any. But though there was little ofgood in the life of the Queen Margot, there was ever something good inher heart.

  She refused to be separated from her husband, merely to serve theintrigues of the Queen-Mother and the Guises.

  "Once already I have been sacrificed to your plots," she said. "Becauseof that, I have a husband who will never love me. A night of bloodstands between us. Yet will I do nothing against him, because he is myhusband. Nor yet for you, my kinsfolk, because ye paid me away like thethirty pieces of silver which Judas scattered in the potter's field. Iwas the price of blood," so she taunted her mother, "and for that myhusband will never love me!"

  No, it was not for that, as history and legend tell all too plainly; butshe was a woman, and had the woman's right to explain the matter so.

  Rather, it was the root-difference of all lack of common interest andmutual love. Two young people, with different upbringings, with motherswide apart as the heaven of Jeanne d'Albret and the inferno of theMedici, were suddenly thrown together with no bond save that of years tounite them. Each went a several way--neither the right way--and there issmall wonder that the result of such a marriage was only unhappiness.

  Said Henry of Navarre to Rosny, his best confidant, when there wasquestion of his own wedding:

  "Seven things are needed in the woman I ought to marry."

  "Seven is a great number, Your Majesty," answered the Right Hand of theBearnais; "but tell them to me, and I will at least cause search to bemade. I will make proclamation for the lady who can put her foot intoseven glass slippers, each one smaller than the other!"

  "First, then," said the King of Navarre, posing a forefinger on the palmof his other hand, and speaking sagely, as a master setting out thesteps of a proposition, "she must have beauty of person!"

  "Good," said Rosny; "Your Majesty has doubtless satisfied himself thatthere are such to be found in the land--once or twice!"

  "Wait, Rosny--let me finish!" said the King. And so continued hisenumeration of wifely necessities, as they appeared to a great prince ofthe sixteenth century.

  "_Item_, she must be modest in her life, of a happy humour, vivid inspirit, ready in affection, eminent in extraction, and possessed ofgreat estates in her own right!"

  For all answer Rosny held up his hands.

  "I know--I know," smiled the Bearnais, "you would say to me that thismarvel of womankind has been dead some time. I would rather say to youthat she has never been born!"

  So it came about that Marguerite, the pretty, foolish butterfly of theValois courts, and her Bearnais husband, rough, soldierly, far-seeing,politic, had not seen each other for five years. Marguerite had shutherself up in the castle of Usson, one of the dread prison fortressesbuilt by "that fox," Louis the Eleventh.

  Though sent almost as a prisoner there, or at least under observation,she had speedily possessed herself of castle and castellan, guard andofficers, kitchen scullions and gardener varlets. For she had the openhand, especially when the money was not her own, the ready wit, andabove all, the charming smile, though even that meant nothing. At least,Margot the Queen was not malicious; and so it was without any fear, butrather with the sort of silent amusement with which we applaud a child'snew trick, that the King dismounted, kissed his wife's hand, answeredher gay greetings, and even cast a critic's eye on the array of beautieswho followed in her train.

  Many gallant gentlemen of the south also accompanied her. Raimonds andCastellanes were there, Princes of Baux and Seigneurs de la Tour--allwilling at once to visit the camp of the Bearnais, and to testify theirloyalty to the Court of France. For in the south, the League and theGuises had made but little progress.

  "Why, Margot, what brings you hither?" said the Bearnais, as he pacedalong by his wife's side, while the suite had dropped far enough behindfor them to speak freely.

  "Well, husband mine," said the Queen Margot, "you have been a bad boy tome, and if I had not been mine own sweet self, you and my brother (peaceto his ashes, as soon as he is dead!) would have shut me up in a big,dull castle to do needlework alone with a cat and a duenna. But I wastoo clever for you. And, after that, they poisoned your mind againstlittle Margot--oh, I know. So I do not blame you greatly, Henry. Also, Ihave a temper that is trying at short range--I admit it. So I am come tomake up--at least, if you will. And further, if by chance my good,simple mother and that gallant, crafty Epernon lad have any tricks totry upon you--why, then I have brought a bag of them too, and can playthem, trick for trick, till we win--you and I, Harry!"

  Margot the Queen waved her hand to the covey of beauties who rode behindher.

  "I would say that they are all queens of beauty," she said, smiling downat him; "but do you know (I am speaking humbly because I know well thatyou do not agree) I am the only really pretty queen in the world?"

  "As to that I do most heartily take oath," said the Bearnais.

  "Ah, but," said Margot, touching him gently on the cheek with the lashof her riding-whip, "I mind well how you swore you would wed the Queenof England, provided she brought you that rich land--aye, though she hadas many wrinkles on her brow as the sea that surrounds her isle, or eventhe Infanta of Spain, old and wizened as a last year's pippin, if onlyshe brought you in dower the Low Countries!"

  "Ah, Margot," said Henry, smiling up at his wife, "and I thought it wasyour sole boast that you never cast up old stories! You always found newones--or made them!"

  "I did but tease," she said; "but indeed, for all my mother is so ill,this is no time for jesting. I have come to see that you get fair playamong them all, my little friend Henry. Though you love me not greatly,and I did sometimes throw the table-equipage at your head, yet Margot ofFrance and Navarre is not the woman to see her husband wronged--least ofall by her own mother and that good, excellent, mignon-loving brother ofmine, the King-titular of some small remnant of France."