The King's Stratagem, and Other Stories

The King's Stratagem, and Other Stories
Stanley Weyman

Weyman Stanley John

The King's Stratagem, and Other Stories

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

In the days when Henry IV. of France was King of Navarre only, and in that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the southwest corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League-in the days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the Pyrenees, was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable personages took place in the picturesque town of La Réole.

La Réole still rises gray, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from Bordeaux. But it is a small place now. In the days of which we are speaking, however, it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded by a castle which looked down on a thousand red-tiled roofs, rising in terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it was for the time as gay as Paris itself, Catherine having brought with her a bevy of fair maids of honor, in the effect of whose charms she perhaps put as much trust as in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful appearance of the town was delusive, for even while every other house in it rang with music and silvery laughter, each party was ready to fly to arms without warning, if it saw that any advantage was to be gained thereby.

On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men sat at play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked down from a considerable height upon the river. The hour was late, and the town silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields and long, straight lines of poplars. Within the room a silver lamp suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the table, leaving the farther parts of the room in shadow. The walls were hung with faded tapestry. On the low bedstead in one corner lay a handsome cloak, a sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period. Across a chair lay another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of saddlebags, were strewn half a dozen such trifles as soldiers carried from camp to camp-a silver comfit-box, a jeweled dagger, a mask, and velvet cap.

The faces of the players, as they bent over the dice, were in shadow. One-a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a mouth as weak, but shaded by a dark mustache-seemed, from the occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. Yet his opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left temple, and that swaggering air which has at all times marked the professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On the contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two, there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes, and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge of his feelings or learn whether the time had come for some experiment which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through the window would have taken the two for only one more instance of the hawk and pigeon.

At last the younger player threw down the caster, with a groan.

"You have the luck of the Evil One," he said bitterly. "How much is that?"

"Two thousand crowns," replied the other without emotion. "You will play no more?"

"No! I wish to Heaven I had never played at all!" was the answer. As he spoke the loser rose, and going to the window stood looking moodily out.

For a few moments the elder man remained seated, gazing at him furtively, but at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his companion, touched him on the shoulder. "Your pardon a moment, M. le Vicomte," he said. "Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum will inconvenience you?"

"A thousand fiends!" exclaimed the young vicomte, turning on him wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would not inconvenience? As for me-"

"For you," continued the other, smoothly filling up the pause, "shall I be wrong in saying that it means something like ruin?"

"Well, sir, and if it does?" the young man retorted, drawing himself up haughtily, his cheek a shade paler with passion. "Depend upon it you shall be paid. Do not be afraid of that!"

"Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered, his patience in strong contrast with the other's violence. "I had no intention of insulting you, believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de Lanthenon are not wont to doubt his honor. I spoke only in your own interest. It has occurred to me, vicomte, that the matter might be arranged at less cost to yourself."

"How?" was the curt question.

"May I speak freely?" The vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, vicomte, are Governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Créance, for the King of France. Our towns lie only three leagues apart. Could I, by any chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny, it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you understand?"

"No," the young man answered slowly, "I do not."

"Think over what I have said, then," was the brief answer.

For a full minute there was silence in the room. The vicomte gazed out of the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his companion, sitting down, leaned back in his chair, with an air of affected carelessness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell struck one. Suddenly the vicomte burst into a hoarse laugh, and, turning, snatched up his cloak and sword. "The trap was very well laid, M. le Capitaine," he said almost jovially; "but I am still sober enough to take care of myself-and of Lusigny. I wish you good-night. You shall have your money, never fear."

"Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the captain answered, as he rose and moved toward the door to open it for his guest. His hand was already on the latch when he paused. "Look here," he said, "what do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you have lost to me, and another thousand besides against your town. Fool! no one can hear us. If you win, you go off a free man with my thousand. If you lose, you put me in possession one of these fine nights. What do you say to that? A single throw to decide."

The young man's pale face reddened. He turned, and his eyes sought the table and the dice irresolutely. The temptation indeed came at an unfortunate moment, when the excitement of play had given way to depression, and he saw nothing before him outside the door, on which his hand was laid, but the cold reality of ruin. The temptation to return, and by a single throw set himself right with the world was too much for him. Slowly he came back to the table. "Confound you!" he said irritably. "I think you are the devil himself, captain."

"Don't talk child's talk!" said the other coldly, drawing back as his victim advanced. "If you do not like the offer you need not take it."

But the young man's fingers had already closed on the dice. Picking them up he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said doubtfully.

"You carry away a thousand crowns," answered the captain quietly. "If you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me before next full moon. That is all."

"And what if I lose, and not pay the forfeit?" asked the vicomte, laughing weakly.

"I trust to your honor," said the captain. And, strange as it may seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his cause and his trust, but the debt of honor incurred at play was binding on him.

"Well," said the vicomte, "I agree. Who is to throw first?"

"As you will," replied the captain, masking under an appearance of indifference a real excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.

"Then do you go first," said the vicomte.

"With your permission," assented the captain. And taking the dice up in the caster he shook them with a practiced hand, and dropped them on the board. The throw was seven.

The vicomte took up the caster and, as he tossed the dice into it, glanced at the window. The moonlight shining athwart it fell in silvery sheen on a few feet of the floor. With the light something of the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He even made as if he would have replaced the box on the table. But the good instinct failed. It was too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to articulate, he threw the dice. Seven!

Neither of the men spoke, but the captain rattled the cubes, and again flung them on the table, this time with a slight air of bravado. They rolled one over the other and lay still. Seven again.

The young vicomte's brow was damp, and his face pale and drawn. He forced a quavering laugh, and with an unsteady hand took his turn. The dice fell far apart, and lay where they fell. Six!

The winner nodded gravely. "The luck is still with me," he said, keeping his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had suddenly leapt into them might not be seen. "When do you go back to your command, vicomte?"

The unhappy man stood like one stunned, gazing at the two little cubes which had cost him so dearly. "The day after to-morrow," he muttered hoarsely, striving to collect himself.

"Then we shall say the following evening?" asked the captain.

"Very well."

"We quite understand one another," continued the winner, eyeing his man watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. "I may depend on you, M. le Vicomte, I presume?"

"The Lanthenons have never been wanting to their word," the young nobleman answered, stung into sudden haughtiness. "If I live I will put Lusigny into your hands, M. le Captaine. Afterward I will do my best to recover it-in another way."

"I shall be entirely at your disposal," replied the captain, bowing lightly. And in a moment he was alone-alone with his triumph, his ambition, his hopes for the future-alone with the greatness to which his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step, and which he should enjoy not a whit the less because as yet fortune had dealt out to him more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score of years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets the vicomte was making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair and unhappiness most difficult to describe. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had seen a way of escape and lost it forever! No wonder that as he trudged alone through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath came quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as a hunted animal might, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could only have retraced the last three hours!

Worn out and exhausted, he entered his lodging, and, securing the door behind him, stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The impulse to confide his misfortunes to someone was so strong upon him that he was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a man's natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half-friend, half-servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at the foot of his bed, who carried his billets-doux and held his cloak at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed him in illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied in support of his suit.

The young vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. "Get up, you rascal!" he cried impatiently. "You pig, you dog!" he continued, with increasing anger. "Sleeping there as though your master were not ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!" he added, gazing bitterly at his follower, "you are of the canaille, and have neither honor to lose nor a town to betray!"

The sleeping man moved In his chair and half turned. The vicomte, his patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on the ground. "Will you listen?" he said. "Or go, if you choose look for another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost all-money, land, Lusigny itself, at the dice!"

The man, aroused at last, stooped with a lazy movement, and picking up his hat dusted it with his hand, and rose with a yawn to his feet.

"I am afraid, vicomte," he said, his tones, quiet as they were, sounding like thunder in the vicomte's astonished and bewildered ears, "I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny, you have lost something which was not yours to lose!"

As he spoke he struck the embers with his foot, and the fire, blazing up, shone on his face. The vicomte saw, with unutterable confusion and dismay, that the man before him was not Gil at all, but the last person in the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and projecting chin, which the short beard and mustache scarcely concealed, were only too well known to him. He stepped back with a cry of horror. "Sire!" he said, and then his tongue failed him. He stood silent, pale, convicted, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had conspired to betray.