The Black Douglas by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (digital ebook reader .txt) 📕

me--oh, deliver from the power of this man. Help me to lie. By Thy Son's blood, help me to lie well this night."
"Where are the three men from the land of the Scots? Tell me what you see. Tell me all," the marshal commanded, still standing before her in the same posture.
Then the voice of the Lady Sybilla began to speak, low and even, and with that strange halt at the end of the sentences. The Lord of Retz nodded, well pleased when he heard the sound. It was the voice of the seeress. Oftentimes he had heard it before, and it had never deceived him.
"I see a boat on a stormy sea," she said; "there are three men in it. One is great of stature and very strong. The others are young men. They are trying to furl the sail. A gust strikes them. The boat heels and goes over. I see them struggling in the pit of waters. There are cliffs white and crumbling above them. They are calling for help as they cling to the boat. Now there is but one of them left. I see him trying to climb up the slippery rocks. He falls back each time. He is weary with much buffeting. The waves break about him and suck him under. Now I do not see the men any more, but I can hear the broken mast of the boat knocking hollow and dull against the rocks. Some few shreds of the sail are wrapped about it. But the three men are gone."
She ceased suddenly. Her lips stopped their curiously detached utterance.
But under her breath and deep in her soul Sybilla de Thouars was still praying as before. And this which follows was her prayer:
"O God, his devil is surely departed from him. I thank thee, God of truth, for helping me to lie."
"It is well," said Gilles de Retz, standing erect with a satisfied air. "All is well. The three Scots who sought my life are gone to their destruction. Now, Sybilla de Thouars, I bid you look upon John, Duke of Brittany. Tell me what he does and says."
The level, impassive, detached voice began again. The hands clasped the cross of gold more closely under the silk apron.
"I see a room done about with silver scallop shells and white-painted ermines. I see a fair, cunning-faced, soft man. Behind him stands one tall, spare, haggard--"
"Pierre de l'Hopital, President of Brittany--one that hates me," said de Retz, grimly between his teeth. "I will meet my fingers about his dog's throat yet. What of him?"
The Lady Sybilla, without a quiver of her shut eyelids took up the cue.
"He hath his finger on a parchment. He strives to point out something to the fair-haired man, but that other shakes his head and will not agree--"
The marshal suddenly grew intent, and even excited.
"Look closer, Sybilla--look closer. Can you not read that which is written on the parchment? I bid you, by all my power, to read it."
Then the countenance of the Lady Sybilla was altered. Striving and blank failure were alternately expressed upon it.
"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" she cried.
"By my power, I bid you. By that which I will make you suffer if you fail me, I command you!" cried Gilles de Retz, bending himself towards her and pressing his fingers against her brow so that the points dented her skin.
The tears sprang from underneath the dark lashes which lay so tremulously upon her white cheek.
"You make me do it! It hurts! I cannot!" she said in the pitiful voice of a child.
"Read--or suffer the shame!" cried Gilles de Retz.
"I will--oh, I will! Be not angry," she answered pleadingly.
And underneath the silk the hands were grasped with a grip like that of a vice upon the golden cross she had borrowed from the little Maid of Galloway.
"Read me that which is written on the paper," said the marshal.
The Lady Sybilla began to speak in a voice so low that Gilles de Retz had to incline his ear very close to her lips to listen.
"Accusation against the great lord and most noble seigneur, Gilles de Laval de Retz, Sire de--"
"That is it--go on after the titles," said the eager voice of the marshal.
"Accused of having molested the messengers of his suzerain, the supreme Duke John of Brittany, accused of ill intent against the State; accused of quartering the arms-royal upon his shield; called to answer for these offences in the city of Nantes--and that is all."
She ended abruptly, like one who is tired and desires no more than to sleep.
Gilles de Retz drew a long sigh of relief.
"All is hid," he said; "these things are less than nothing. What does the Duke?"
"I cannot look again, I am weary," she said.
"Look again!" thundered her taskmaster.
"I see the fair-haired man take the parchment from the hand of the dark, stern man--"
"With whom I will reckon!"
"He tries to tear it in two, but cannot. He throws it angrily in the fire."
"My enemies are destroyed," said Gilles de Retz, "I thank thee, great Barran-Sathanas. Thou hast indeed done that which thou didst promise. Henceforth I am thy servant and thy slave."
So saying, he took a glass of water from the table and dashed it on the face of the Lady Sybilla.
"Awake," he said, "you have done well. Go now and repose that you may again be ready when I have need of you."
A flicker of conscious life appeared under the purple-veined eyelids of the Lady Sybilla. Her long, dark lashes quivered, tried to rise, and again lay still.
The marshal took the illuminated copy of the Evangelists from the table and fanned her with the thin parchment leaves.
"Awake!" he cried harshly and sternly.
The eyes of the girl slowly opened their pupils dark and dilated. She carried her hand to her head, but wearily, as if even that slight movement pained her. The golden cross swung unseen under the silken folds of her apron.
"I am so tired--so tired," the girl murmured to herself as Gilles de Retz assisted her to rise. Then hastily handing her over to Poitou, he bade him conduct her to her own chamber.
But as she went through the door of the marshal's laboratory she looked upon the floor and smiled almost joyously.
"His devil has indeed departed from him," she murmured to herself. "I thank the God of Righteousness who this night hath enabled me to baffle him with a woman's poor wit, and to lie to him that he may be led quick to destruction, and fall himself into the pit which he hath prepared for the feet of the innocent."


CHAPTER LV
THE RED MILK
Darkly and swiftly the autumn night descended upon Machecoul. In the streets of the little feudal bourg there were few passers-by, and such as there were clutched their cloaks tighter round them and scurried on. Or if they raised their heads, it was only to take a hasty, fearful glance at the vast bulk of the castle looming imminent above them.
From a window high in the central keep a red light streamed out, and when the clouds flew low, strange dilated shadows were wont to be cast upon the rolling vapour. Sometimes smoke, acrid and heavy, bellied forth, and anon wild cries of pain and agony floated down to silence the footfalls of the home-returning rustics and chill the hearts of burghers trembling in their beds.
But none dared to question in public the doings of the great and puissant lord of all the country of Retz. It fared not well with him who even looked too much at the things which were done.
The night was yet darker up aloft in the Castle of Machecoul itself. In the sacristy good Father Blouyn, with an air of resigned reluctance, was handing over to an emissary of his master the moulds in which the tall altar candles for the Chapel of the Holy Innocents were usually cast and compacted. And as Clerk Henriet went out with the moulds he took a long look through a private spy-hole at the lads of the choir who were sitting in the hall apportioned to their use. They were supposed to be busy with their lessons, and, indeed, a few were poring over their books with some show of studious absorption. But for the most part they were playing at cards and dominos, or, in the absence of the master, sticking intimate pins and throwing about indiscriminate ink, according to the immemorial use of the choir-boy.
Clerk Henriet counted them twice over and in especial looked carefully to see what did the young Scots lad, who had so mysteriously escaped from the dread room of his master. Laurence MacKim played X's and O's upon a board with Blaise Renouf, the precentor's son, and at some hitch in the game he incontinently clouted the Frenchman upon the ear. Whereupon ensued trouble and the spilling of much ink.
Henriet, perfectly satisfied, took up the heavy moulds and made his way to his lord's chamber, where many things were used for purposes other than those for which they had been intended.
Upon the back of his departure came in the Precentor Renouf, who laid his baton conjointly and freely about the ears of his son and those of Laurence MacKim.
"Get to your beds both of you, and that supperless, for uproar and conduct ill becoming two youths who worship God all day in his sanctuary, and are maintained at grievous expense by our most devout and worthy lord, Messire Gilles of Laval and Retz, Seigneur and Lord!"
Laurence, who had of set purpose provoked the quarrel, was slinking away, when the "Psalta" (as the choir-master is called in lower Brittany) ordered them to sleep in separate rooms for the better keeping of the peace.
"And do you, Master Laurence, perform your vigil of the night upon the pavement of the chapel. For you are the most rebellious and troublesome of all--indeed, past bearing. Go! Not a word, sirrah!"
So, much rejoiced in heart that matters had thus fallen out, Laurence MacKim betook himself to the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, and was duly locked in by the irate precentor.
For, upon various occasions, he had watched the Lord of Retz descend into the chapel by a private staircase which opened out in an angle behind the altar. He had also seen Poitou, his confidential body-servant, lock it after him with a small key of a yellow colour which he took from his fork pocket.
Now Master Laurence, as may have already been observed, was (like most of the youthful unordained clergy) little troubled, at least in minor matters, with scruples about such slight distinctions as those which divide _meum_ and _tuum_. He found no difficulty therefore in abstracting this key when Poitou was engaged in attending his master from the chapel, in which service it was his duty to pass the stalls with open lattice ends of carven work in which sat the elder choir-boys. Having secured the key, Laurence hid it instantly beneath the leaden saint on his cap, refastening the long pin which kept our Lady of Luz in her place through the fretwork of the little brazen key.
Presently he saw Poitou come back and look carefully here and there upon the floor, but after a while, not finding anything, he went out again to search elsewhere.
The idea had come to Laurence that at the head of the stairway from the chapel was the prison chamber of Maud Lindesay and her ward, the little Maid Margaret of Galloway.
He told himself at least that this was his main object, and doubtless he had the matter in his mind.