The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗

CHAPTER IX # THE HERETIC

The answer from M. de Biron contained flat discouragement. In his words

seemed to lurk a smile at the simplicity of Luc: there were no places at

Court or even in obscure corners of France that were not already

allotted, long before they were vacant, to those who were friends of

pensioners of the Court favourites and the Ministers.

 

It was absurd to hope that anyone with no recommendation above his

talents could obtain even a clerk’s place in the Government, added M. de

Biron, and he advised Luc to spare himself the fatigue and humiliation

of further applications, and suggested that he should abandon ideas that

were certain to end in disappointment.

 

The letter was meant kindly, but it brought a flush of anger to Luc’s

cheek; then he laughed, and with the laugh his old serenity returned. M.

de Biron should not block his way; there were other channels. He did not

show the letter to his father, but merely told him that his former

Colonel could be no help.

 

The Marquis said nothing, but a few days later produced, with much

pride, a letter from M. de Caumont to M. de Richelieu, Governor of

Languedoc, asking for his interest for Luc, who was touched and moved by

his father’s thought.

 

Yet he was not altogether pleased. He had heard enough of M. de

Richelieu from Hippolyte, M. de Caumont’s son, who had never spoken of

him with anything but dislike, and he knew the Governor’s reputation as

the most famous man of fashion of the moment and a hard persecutor of

the Protestants in Languedoc.

 

But he could refuse neither his own father’s interest nor the help of

his dead friend’s father, and M. de Richelieu was a great gentleman who

could raise anyone where he would. It happened also that he was now at

Avignon, where he seldom enough made his residence, and Luc’s direct

enthusiasm resolved him to go there and present his letter himself. His

father was for sending it by messenger, and his mother wished to detain

him in Aix. He suspected her of tender little schemes with regard to

himself and Mademoiselle de Séguy, who had, with such innocent coquetry,

been sent in upon him that August evening, when, as it happened, he had

first made the resolve to enter politics. He overruled this gentle

opposition and left Aix in late September with one servant and a good

roan horse. Though his soul was serious it was young. The freedom of the

peaceful open country, the freshness of the autumn air, the sight of the

fields of grain—these simple things affected his spirits to the height

of exaltation. He felt his old health return; he was as light-hearted as

if he had never seen Bohemia.

 

But as they rode farther into Languedoc the surroundings changed: the

ground was neglected, the cottages mere huts, the peasantry silent and

ragged, the cattle poor and scarce. Luc, noticing this, fell into a kind

of gravity.

 

They took the journey easily. On the second day, when within easy

distance of Avignon, they stopped at a humble inn on the high road

shaded by a dusty grove of poplar trees.

 

Luc found two other travellers in the parlour. At the first glance he

was interested in them; he had a passion for studying character, and

could never observe strangers indifferently. He crossed to the window,

which looked on to a herb garden, and seated himself on the

chintz-covered window-seat and delicately watched the two, who were

engaged in eating omelette and salad at a round table near the

fire-place. One was a priest and a conspicuously handsome man, but

without attraction, for his dark face was hard and immobile and his

eyes, though very brilliant, expressionless; he wore the black robes of

a canon, which hung gracefully on his spare, powerful figure.

 

His companion was, as Luc knew at once, a foreigner; what else he might

be was not so easy to decide. His age might be between thirty and forty.

He was tall, well-made, and well-featured, with a rich olive complexion

and quickly moving brown eyes. He wore his own hair hanging about his

face, and there was more than a little of the eccentric in his dress,

which was of the brightest green silk lined with black.

 

From the hard quality of his French, something vivid, self-confident,

gay, and yet indifferent in his manner and person, Luc believed he was

Italian.

 

He, on his part, was not long in noticing the slim young gentleman in

the window-seat, and, leaning back in his chair, he called out an

invitation to wine. Something in his cordial tone, his attitude, his

smile of gleaming, excellent teeth showed Luc that he was a fellow of no

breeding.

 

Without hesitation he civilly declined and left the room. As he closed

the door he heard the foreigner laugh good-naturedly and say something

to the priest in Italian marked by a beautiful Roman accent.

 

Luc had his own meal outside on one of the little tables under the dusty

vines, and before the middle of the afternoon rode on again, meaning to

reach Avignon before the night.

 

Towards evening they came to a miserable village, whose inhabitants

seemed in a considerable state of excitement: a great number of women

were talking and shrieking round the fountain in the marketplace, and

three priests argued outside the porch of the poor little church.

 

The Marquis acknowledged their humble salutes, and was glad to be rid of

them and out in the open country again.

 

He had not long cleared the houses, however, before he overtook a

procession, which was evidently the cause of the commotion. It consisted

of four soldiers, a serjeant, and a prisoner, followed by a crowd of

peasants, mostly men and boys.

 

Luc’s hazel eyes flashed quickly to the prisoner, who walked between the

two foremost soldiers. She was a young peasant girl, finely made and not

more than eighteen years of age. Her blue skirt and red bodice were

worn, faded, and patched, her feet and arms bare; round her coarse,

sun-dried hair was a soiled white handkerchief. Her face, though pale

under the tincture of the weather, was composed and serene, even though

the crowd was assailing her with hideous names, with horrible

accusations, with handfuls of dirt and stones.

 

Her hands were tied behind her, and if her walk fell slowly the soldiers

urged her on with the points of their bayonets.

 

The Marquis reined up his horse to allow them to pass. He supposed they

were going to set her in the stocks for witchcraft or scolding; that

look on her face he supposed must be stupidity. The whole spectacle

roused in him sad distaste.

 

The rabble of peasantry, seeing that he was a gentleman, fell to silence

till they were well past him, then broke out again into shouts and

curses. The soldiers turned off the high road across a field that led to

a long slope and a little thin wood.

 

The Marquis remained still, with his patient servant behind him,

watching the little procession.

 

He noticed the girl stumble and saw one of the soldiers thrust at her so

that she fell on to her knees. The crowd at once broke into laughter and

pelted her with dirt.

 

Luc touched up his horse, crossed the field, and in a moment was among

them. One of the guard had dragged the prisoner to her feet; she was

being assailed by such horrid terms of abuse that he thought she must be

some shameless thief or murderess. He spoke to the serjeant with quiet

disgust, and his fine appearance, lofty manner, and long habit of

command served to win the man’s respectful answer: he could not, he

declared, keep the people off. As he spoke he threatened with his sword

the nearest of the crowd, which had already scattered at the sight of

the gentleman.

 

“The law,” said Luc, “is no matter for me to interfere with,” for he saw

the fellow pulling a warrant from his pocket; “but I will use my whip on

these should they further molest yonder wretch.”

 

He glanced at the prisoner, who stood for the moment isolated with her

head bent. Her feet and the edge of her dress were covered with mud; her

shoulders were bruised and her legs scratched and bleeding; her face,

which was handsome, but of low type, was flooded with sudden colour and

her wide lips twitched uncontrollably. The Marquis sickened to see her;

he was turning back when she looked up straight into his face. Her eyes

were large, far apart, and bloodshot, the lashes white with dust. As she

gazed at Luc her disfigured, almost stupid-looking countenance was

changed by a smile which was like a lady’s thanks for courtesy.

 

Then she bent her head again and began to walk on painfully. The

soldiers closed round her, the serjeant fell in with a salute to the

Marquis, and the crowd followed, but at some distance and in silence.

 

Luc watched them till they were over the hill and out of sight; he

frowned in absorption and hardly troubled to notice two horsemen who had

joined him and reined their horses near his. When he turned,

indifferently, to look at them, he saw that they were the same

remarkable couple that he had noticed at the inn.

 

The Italian saluted him instantly.

 

“Monsieur,” he said with some eagerness, “where has the woman gone?”

 

“Over the hill,” answered Luc shortly.

 

The Italian rubbed his hands together softly.

 

“Well, well,” he said under his breath.

 

“What has the creature done?” asked the Marquis of the priest. “And

where have they brought her from?”

 

The priest named a village some leagues off, and the Italian remarked

that they had seen the procession earlier in the day, and that the

probable object of bringing her this distance was to terrorize the

countryside.

 

“What is her crime?” demanded the Marquis haughtily. He disliked priests

and foreigners in general and felt no reason to make an exception for

these two.

 

The priest fixed on him eyes that were metallic and twinkling in their

hardness; he made the sign of the