_ CHAPTER XXIX. THE PRICE OF A LATE BREAKFAST
For men there is no such ladder to place and fame as their fellow-men. Over their crushed and trampled backs, or with a hand in their pocket, ambition or greed can climb to heights which would be hopelessly unattainable but for the unwilling foothold of another's disadvantage. La Mothe? Who the deuce was La Mothe? Beaufoy neither knew nor cared. He had his first commission in his pocket, a good horse between his knees, the warm sunshine of the May morning lapping him round with all the subtle sweetness of the sweetest season of the year, and Valmy, which hipped him horribly with its gloom, was behind his back. He was almost as fully in fortune's pocket as Monsieur d'Argenton!
Nor was that all. There was even the hope that this poor devil of a La Mothe might say, "No, thank you!" to the order for arrest, and so give Paul Beaufoy opportunity to prove to the world at large, and the King in particular, that Paul Beaufoy was not to be trifled with, that Paul Beaufoy was as ready with his sword as clever with his head, and fit for something much better than arresting poor devils accused of God knows what. But that would be too great good fortune, and meanwhile the world was all one warm, sensuous, golden, best of worlds, with just one small fret to mar its perfection--he had had no breakfast! That must be remedied, and the half hour's delay could be made good by harder riding afterwards.
So, midway to Chateau-Renaud, at the junction of the St. Amand road, he gave a little auberge his custom, comforting nature with an omelet while a fowl was being put on the spit. But because custom such as Paul Beaufoy's came that way but seldom the fowl was slow to come by, yet slower to cook, and more time went to its eating than would have been to Paul Beaufoy's advantage had the King known the excellence of his appetite. But the King knew nothing and would know nothing, so no one was hurt by the picking of the bones. The poor devil of a La Mothe would naturally not object to the delay, and in any case a prick of the spur would drag back some of the lost minutes.
Gaily he put his theory into practice, his heart as light as a bird on the wing or the paper which was to consign this unknown poor devil of a La Mothe to he neither knew nor cared what misfortune, and gallantly the generous beast between his knees answered the call. But--surely disjunctive conjunctions are the tragedies of the language! They tumble our castles in Spain about our ears with neither ruth nor warning. Man would be in Paradise to this day--but Eve ate the apple; Napoleon would have conquered Europe--but England stood in the way. So was it with Paul Beaufoy. His lost hour would have been regained--but but the pace killed, and with Amboise a weary distance away he found himself stranded and disconsolate beside a foundered horse. And linked to the tragedy of the disjunctive was this other tragedy. It is the generous-hearted who pay for the follies of others. Had the broken-down beast been a cowardly scum it would never have lain a castaway by the roadside.
And now, indeed, in the King's vigorous phrase, hell was at his back; only, as is so often the way with blinded humanity, he never guessed the truth, but thought it salvation, from behind, down a side-road, clattered a small troop at a quick trot, and taking the middle of the highway Beaufoy called a halt.
"In the King's name!" he cried, holding up the hand of authority. The intoxication of a first commission is almost as self-deceiving as that of a first love. In his place Philip de Commines, recognizing that he was outnumbered ten to one, would have been diplomatic. When there is no power to strike, it is always unwise to clench the fist, especially when a hat in the hand may gain the point. But the authority sufficed, and at a motion from their leader the troop halted.
"More energy than discretion," said he, with a glance at the disabled horse. "What can I do for you, and why in the King's name?"
"My energy and discretion are my affair," answered Beaufoy, more nettled by his inability to dispute the truth than by the truth itself. "I am from Valmy upon the King's business, and must have a horse without delay."
"Let Valmy buy its own horses, I am no dealer," was the brusque answer. But the hands which had caught up the loosened reins promptly tightened them afresh. "How long from Valmy?"
"That can matter nothing to you; what does matter is that I am on the King's business and must have a horse."
"Having, like a fool, killed your own! But that, as you say, is no affair of mine. When did you leave Valmy?"
"I see no reason----" began Beaufoy, but with a backward gesture the other silenced him.
"Reasons enough," he said. "Count them for yourself. For the third time, when did you leave Valmy?"
"This morning, and I warn you that the King will call you to account for every minute's delay."
"You, not me; I did not founder your horse." The half banter passed from his voice, and the bronzed face hardened. "And we have accounts enough as it is, the King and I."
"Pray God he pays his debts and mine, and that I be there to see," retorted Beaufoy, exasperated out of all prudence. "Again, in the King's name I demand your help. I must have a horse. Two of your men can ride double."
"Must this! Demand that! Tut, tut! you forget the reasons behind me." But though he spoke with a return of the banter which goaded the unfortunate Beaufoy almost to madness, his eyes were keenly alert and there was no smile in the mockery. Had Beaufoy been a Philip de Commines he would have known that jest with no laughter at its back is more dangerous than a threat. "Where are you going?"
"That is my affair and the King's."
Lurching forward in the saddle the elder man--he was eight or ten years the senior--shook his clenched gauntlet in Beaufoy's face, his own crimson from the gust of passion which suddenly swept across it. "The King! The King! The King!" he cried furiously. "Curse you and your King! What devil's plot is that lying old tiger-fox scheming now that you ride to death an honester brute than either of you? Whose murder comes next? Or are you from Valmy at all? Give some account of yourself."
"If you are a gentleman, if you are not a coward as well as a bully," answered Beaufoy, his face as white as the other's was flushed, "come down from your horse and meet me man to man. You'll not ask me to give an account of myself a second time."
"That is Valmy all over! Give up my advantage that you may gain! And who are you with your musts and demands?"
"My name is Beaufoy----"
"Then you are not from Valmy," broke in the other, running on Beaufoy's name, "for no faith, beau, bonne, or belle, ever came out of Valmy."
With a shrug of his shoulders Beaufoy turned on his heel. "Coward as well as bully," he began, but at a sign from their leader the troop gathered round, hemming him in in a circle.
"Now that my reasons are plainer to you, will you answer my question--where are you going? No reply? And yet no one understands the logic of numbers better than your coward of a master. But I'll have my answer. Are you going to Blois? No! To Tours? No! Amboise? Ah! your eyes have a tongue of their own. You cannot have lived very long in Valmy, my ingenuous friend. Why to Amboise? You won't tell? But, by God, you shall! Do you think I'll be baulked for a scruple?" His hand crept to his hilt as he spoke; now, with a swift wrench the blade was out and its point at Beaufoy's throat. "Come, your message?"
But Beaufoy only shook his head. The age had the quality of its defects. The law that might was right had bred a contempt for life, one's own or another's, it mattered little which. In the great game of national aggression the single life is a very small thing, and the man who slew without pity could die without fear. If any second incentive were needed, Beaufoy found it in the gibe at his name. Beaufoy would hold good faith let it cost Beaufoy what it might. Stiffening himself rigidly he answered nothing.
"Come, the message! I'll have it, though I rip it out of you. You won't answer? Then there is no help for it. Once!"--and the point touched--"twice!"--and the point pricked--"three times! Monsieur, you are a brave fool, but on your life do not stir. Grip him by the elbows, Jan. Now you, Michault, go through his pockets. What first? An empty purse! And yet you must have a horse, must you? Was I to collect its price at Valmy, my good sir? When I go to Valmy it will be for more than the life of a horse. Next, a woman's ribbon! No wonder the purse was empty. A paper! Give it me--a love-letter! I congratulate you, Monsieur Beaufoy, and return it without reading the signature. No doubt the empty purse is justified. May she show as firm a faith as you have done; her cause is the better of the two. Now that. This time we have it. Monsieur Beaufoy, you have done everything a brave and honourable gentleman could do. Give me your parole to hurt neither yourself nor us and Jan will release your arms."
Panting, every nerve tense with impotent resentment, Paul Beaufoy looked up into the not unkindly eyes turned down to his. A physiognomist would have said it was a reckless face rather than an evil one. The blade had been lowered, but Jan's muscular hands still held his elbows behind his back in an iron grip; beyond him was Michault. No prisoner in shackles was more helpless.
"For this time," he said between his teeth; "but God granting me life----"
"Let go your hold, Jan. Monsieur Beaufoy, I trust you as I would never trust that brute without a soul you call King. Trust the King? God help the man who trusts King Louis! One very dear to me trusted him, trusted his pledged word with his life, and I humbly pray God's mercy has him in its keeping, for he found none in Valmy." Sheathing his sword he sat back in the saddle and smoothed the looted paper carefully. "Go to Amboise. Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring him to Valmy without delay. Tell him his orders are cancelled, and on your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.--LOUIS."
Having read the order through from beginning to end, he read it over a second time, sentence by sentence, pausing to consider each separately.
"'Go to Amboise.' Monsieur Beaufoy, I do not wish to ask you anything a man of honour such as you are cannot answer. Do they know you in Amboise?"
"No," answered Beaufoy, after a moment's consideration; "and if I thought it mattered one way or the other, you would get no answer from me. I am from the north, and a stranger both in Valmy and Amboise."
"'Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring him to Valmy without delay.' It follows that you do not know this Stephen La Mothe nor he you?"
"No," repeated Beaufoy.
"Nor his offence?"
"Not even that."
"God knows there need be no offence at all. 'Tell him his orders are cancelled.' Monsieur Beaufoy, I do not ask you what these orders are."
"And if I knew, I would not tell you."
"Then you do not know?"
"No."
"'On your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.' Is it fair to ask why?"
"Again, if I knew, I would not tell you, but I do not."
"Then it comes to this: you, a stranger in Amboise, are to arrest a stranger to yourself for an offence of which you are ignorant?"
"With my orders clear and explicit I have no need of knowledge."
"Is this order public property at Valmy?"
"No one knows of it except myself and the King," replied Beaufoy, clinging desperately to the remnants of his authority.
The other nodded abstractedly, his thoughts busy elsewhere. He quite recognized the type of man with whom he had to do--light-hearted, careless, frivolous even up to a certain point, but beyond that immovable. To question further would be useless, and almost in violation of the strange code of honour which permitted unscrupulous violence but respected the right of reticence in an equal--in an equal, be it observed; an inferior had no rights, none whatever.
"'Bring him to Valmy.'" Turning in his saddle he beckoned to one of his followers, a man older than the rest, shrewd-faced and grizzled. "What do you think, Perrault; can we do it?"
"Enter Amboise?"
"Enter Valmy."
But Beaufoy could control himself no longer. "Monsieur, whoever you are, I demand back the King's order. These instructions are for me alone and I must----"
"What? More musts? No, no, you have done all a man of honour can do--except hold your tongue and acknowledge the inevitable. Jan and Michault, take Monsieur Beaufoy into the field yonder, but quietly, courteously."
"Courteously!" foamed Beaufoy, struggling vainly as he was hustled across the road out of earshot. "Curse your courtesy, footpad! Some day you shall answer me for this."
"If the King permits," was the ironic reply. "Be a little more gentle, Jan. Now, Perrault?"
"Monsieur Marc, they will never let us into Valmy."
"Not all of us, not you--I alone."
"Alone? Monsieur Marc, you would never venture----"
"Never venture? As God lives, Perrault, I would venture to the gates of hell for just five minutes with Louis of France, and you know it."
"But it is impossible."
"Desperate, not impossible. This," and he shook the paper in his closed hand, "gives me Stephen La Mothe; La Mothe has the King's signet, he told Villon and Villon told Saxe; the signet gives me Valmy if I have any luck. La Mothe and the King at one cast--La Mothe, through whom I have twice missed the Dauphin! Perrault, I'll do it; by all the saints, I'll do it."
"Yes," said Perrault, and there was a wistful tenderness in his rough voice, "you may get into Valmy, but, Master Marc, you'll never win out again."
"Old friend, would you have me turn coward with such a chance flung in my way? And would Guy have done less for me?"
But Perrault returned no answer. _