"While you remain here, I am no better than a poor moth fluttering about the candle!"

"But the Cause?" she cried, with an angry clap of her hands.

"That for the Cause!" said Guise, snapping his fingers lightly; "a man has but one life to live, and few privileges therein. But surely he may be allowed to lay that one at a fair lady's feet!"

Without answering, Valentine la Nina swept up the stairs of the Queen's lodging, her heart within her like lead.

"After all," she murmured, as she shut herself in her room, "I have done my best. I have warned him time and again. I cannot save a man against his will. Paugh!" (she turned hastily from the window), "there he is again on the other side of the way, pacing the street as if it were the p.o.o.p of an amiral!"

The little walled garden at Madame Granier's, with its trellised vines, the wind-swept wintry sh.o.r.e of the Loire, and the bleached sh.e.l.l-pink of the shingle, all went back to their ancient quiet. The whole world was in, at, and about the Chateau. Men, women, and both sorts of angels were busy around the Castle of Blois in these short grey days of mid-most winter.

Now and then, however, would come a heavenly morning, when Claire, left alone, looked out upon the clear, clean, zenith-blue sweep of the river, and on the misty opal and ultramarine ash of the distance, ridge fading behind ridge as drowsy thought fades into sleep.

"It is a Paradise of beauty, but"--here she hesitated a while--"there is no Adam, that I can see!"

In spite of the winter day she opened her window to the slightly sun-warmed air.

"I declare I am somewhat in Eve's mood to-day," she continued, smiling to herself as she laid down her embroidery; "even an affable serpent would be better than nothing."

But it could not be. For all the powers of good and evil--the Old Serpent among them--were full of business in the Chateau of Blois during these days of the King's last parliament. And so, while Claire read her Amyot's _Plutarch_ and John Knox's _Reformation_, the single stroke which changed all history hung unseen in the blue.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BLOOD ON THE KERCHIEF

The most familiar servants of my Lord of Guise dared not awake their master. He had cast himself down on the great bed in his chamber when he came in late, or rather early--no man cared to ask which--from the lodging of Monsieur de Noirmoutier. Even his bravest gentlemen feared to disturb him, though the King's messenger had come twice to summon him to a council meeting at the Chateau.

"Early--very early? Well, what is that to me?" said the herald. "Bid your master come to the King!"

"The King! Who is he?" cried insolently the young De Bar. "Brother Henry the Monk may be your master--he is not ours."

"Hush!" said the aged Raincy, Guise's privileged major-domo and confidant, the only man from whom the Duke took advice, "it were wiser to send a message that my Lord of Guise is ill, but that he will be informed of the King's command and will be at the Chateau as soon as possible."

Guise finally awoke at eight, and looking out, shivered a little at the sight of as dismal a dawning as ever broke over green Touraine. It had been raining all night, and, indeed, when the Duke had come in from his supper-party he had thrown himself down with but little ceremony of undressing. This carelessness and his damp clothes had told upon him.

"A villain rheum," he cried, as he opened his eyes, to listen ill-humouredly enough to Raincy's grave communication of the King's demand. "And what do you tell me? A villain day? Draw aside the curtains that I may see the better. What--snow? It was rain when I came in."

He sneezed twice, on which Raincy wished him a long life.

"'Tis more than the King of all the Penitent Monks wishes me," said the Duke, shovelling notes and letters of all shapes and sizes out of his pockets. Some had been crumpled in the palm of the hand scornfully, some refolded meditatively, some twisted between the fingers into nervous spills, but by far the greater number had never been opened at all.

"See what they say, Raincy," cried the Duke. "I can dress myself--one does not need to go brave only to see the King of France playing monkey tricks in a turban and woman's dressing-gown, scented of musk and flounced in the fashion! Pah! But, Raincy, what a cold I have taken!

'Tis well enough for a man when he is young to go out supping in December, but for me, at eight-and-thirty--I am raucous as a gallows'

crow! Give me my cloak, Raincy, and order my horse!"

"But, Your Grace," gasped the alarmed Raincy, "you have had no breakfast! Your Grace would not go thus to the council--you who are more powerful than the King--nay, whom all France, save a few heretics and bl.u.s.terers, wish to be king indeed!"

"Aye--aye--perhaps!" said Guise, not ill-pleased, "that may be very true. But the Bearnais does not pay these rogues and bl.u.s.terers of his.

That is his strength. See what an army he has, and never a sou do they see from year's end to year's end! As for me"--here he took a paper out of his pocket-book, and made a rapid calculation--"to entertain a war in France, it were necessary to spend seven hundred thousand livres a month. For our Leaguers cry 'vivas' with their mouths, but they will not lift a pike unless we pay them well for it!"

He folded the paper carefully, as if for future reference.

"What money have I, Raincy?" he said, flapping his empty purse on the table; "not much, I fear. It is time I was leaving Blois, Raincy, if I wish to go with decent credit!"

Now was the valet's chance, which he had been waiting for.

"Ay, it is indeed time--and high time," said Raincy, "if these letters speak true. Let us mount and ride to Soissons--only Your Grace and I, if so it please you. But in an hour it may be too late."

The Duke of Guise laughed, and clapped his major-domo on the shoulder.

"Do not you also become a croaker," he cried; "leave me at least Raincy, who sees that the League holds the King in a cleft stick. My good man, he dare not--this Henry of the Fox's Heart. I have the clergy, the Church, the people, most of the lords. The Parliament itself is filled with our people. Blois, all except the Chateau, is crammed with our men, as a bladder is with lard!"

"Ah, except the Chateau," groaned Raincy; "but that is the point. You are going to the Chateau, and the Fox is cunning--he has teeth as well as another!"

"But he dares not trap the lion, Raincy," laughed Guise. "Why, you are as bad as Madame de Noirmoutier, who made me promise to ride off to-day like a whipped cur--I, the Guise. There, no more, Raincy! I tell you I will dethrone the King. Then I will beat the Bearnais and take him about the land as a show in a cage, for he will be the only Huguenot left in all the realm of France. Then you, Raincy, shall be my grand almoner. Be my little one now! Quick, give me twelve golden crowns--that my purse, when I go among my foes, be not like that of my cousin of Navarre!"

As the major-domo went to seek the gold, Guise stretched his feet out to the blaze and, with a smile on his face, hummed the chorus of the Leaguers' marching-song.

"I would I were a little less _balafre_ on such a cold morning,"

grumbled the Duke; "scars honourable are all very well, but--give me a handkerchief, Raincy. That arquebusier at Chateau Thierry fetched me a villain thwack on the cheek-bone, and on cold days one eye still weeps in sympathy with my misfortunes!"

"Ah, my good lord," said Raincy, "pray that before sundown this day many an eye in France may not have cause to weep!"

"Silence there, old croaker," cried the Duke; "my sword--my cloak! What, have you so forgot your business in prating of France, that you will not even do your office? Carry these things downstairs! A villain's day!--a dog's day! The cold the wolf-packs bring when they come down to harry the villages! Hold the stirrup, Raincy! Steady, la.s.s! Wey there! Thou lovest not standing in the rain, eh? Wish me luck, Raincy. I carry the hope of France, you know--King Henry of Guise, and the throats of the Protestant dogs all cut--sleep on that sentiment, good Raincy."

And Raincy watched the Duke ride away towards the Castle of Blois. The last echo of his master's voice came back to him on the gusty December wind:

"_The Guises are good men, good men, The Cardinal, and Henry, and Mayenne, Mayenne!

For we'll fight till all be grey-- The Valois at our feet to-day--_"

Raincy stood awhile motionless, the tears running down his face. He was about to shut the door, when, just where the Duke had sprung upon his horse, he caught the glimpse of something white on the black drip of the eaves. He stooped and picked it up. It was the handkerchief his master had bidden him fetch. It was adorned with the arms of Guise, the Lilies of France being in the centre. But now the _fleurs-de-lys_ were red lilies. The blood of the Guise had stained them.

And Raincy stood long, long there in the open street, the sleety snow falling upon his grey head, the kerchief in his hand, marvelling at the portent.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE TIGER IN THE FOX'S TRAP

Above, in the Chateau of Blois, there were two men waiting the coming of Henry, Duke of Guise. One was another Henry, he of Valois, King of France. He had many things to avenge--his own folly and imprudence most of all, though, indeed, these never troubled him. Only the matter of Coligny, and the sombre shades of the dead upon St. Bartholomew's Eve, haunted his repose.

At the private gathering of the conspirators, the King had found many who were willing to sympathise with him in his woes, but few who would drive the steel.