The Duke's Motto: A Melodrama Page 2

  I

  THE SEVEN DEVILS

  It was very warm in the inn room, but it was so much warmer outside, inthe waning flames of the late September evening, that the dark roomseemed veritably cool to those who escaped into its shelter from thefading sunlight outside. A window was open to let in what little air wasstirring, and from that window a spectator with a good head might lookdown a sheer drop of more than thirty feet into the moat of the Castle ofCaylus. The Inn of the Seven Devils was perched on the lip of one rock,and Caylus Castle on the lip of another. Between the two lay the gorge,which had been partially utilized to form the moat of the castle, andwhich continued its way towards the Spanish mountains. Beyond the castlea bridge spanned the ravine, carrying on the road towards the frontier.The moat itself was dry now, for war and Caylus had long beendisassociated, and France was, for the moment, at peace with herneighbor, if at peace with few other powers. A young thirteenth Louis, ason of the great fourth Henri, now sat upon the throne of France, andseemingly believed himself to be the ruler of his kingdom, though a newlymade Cardinal de Richelieu held a different opinion, and acted accordingto his conviction with great pertinacity and skill.

  Inside the Inn of the Seven Devils, on this heavy day of early autumn,seven men were sitting. It was an odd chance, and the men had joked aboutit heavily--there was one man for each devil of the Inn's name. Six ofthese men were grouped about a table furnished with flagons and beakers,and were doing their best to alleviate the external heat by copiousdraughts of the rough but not unkindly native wine which Martine, theplain-faced maid of the Inn, dispensed generously enough from a ruddyearthenware pitcher. A stranger entering the room would, at the firstglance, have taken the six men seated around the table for soldiers, forall were stalwart fellows, with broad bodies and long limbs, bronzedfaces and swaggering carriage, and behind them where they sat six greatrapiers dangled from nails in the wall, rapiers which the revellers hadremoved from their sides for their greater ease and comfort. But if thesuppositious stranger were led to study the men a little more closely, hewould be tempted to correct his first impression. The swaggering carriageof the men lacked something of the stiffness inevitably to be associatedwith military training in the days when the levies of the Sun-King wereheld, or at least held themselves to be, the finest troops in Europe, acheerful opinion which no amount of military misfortune could dissipate.

  Each of the drinkers of the inn had his own individuality of swagger, histruculent independence of mien, which suggested a man by no meanshabitually used either to receive commands or to render unquestioningobedience. Each of the men resembled his fellows in a certain flamboyantair of ferocity, but no one of them resembled the others by wearing thatair of harmonious training with other men which links together a companyof seasoned soldiers. With their long cloaks and their large hats andtheir high boots, with their somewhat shabby garments stained with ageand sweat and wine, in many places patched and in many places tattered,with their tangled locks and ragged mustachios, the revellers had oncloser study more the appearance of brigands, or at least of guerillas,than of regular troops. As a matter of fact, they were neither soldiersnor brigands, though their way of life endowed them with some of thevirtues of the soldier and most of the vices of the brigand.

  There was not a man in that room who lacked courage of the fiercest kind;there was but one man in the room with intelligence enough to appreciatethe possibility of an existence uncoupled with the possession of courageof the fiercest kind. There was not a man in the room who had theslightest fear of death, save in so far as death meant the cessation ofthose privileges of eating grossly, drinking grossly, and loving grossly,which every man of the jack-rascals prized not a little. There was not aman in the room that was not prepared to serve the person, whoever hemight be, who had bought his sword to strike and his body to be stricken,so long as the buyer and the bought had agreed upon the price, and solong as the man who carried the sword felt confident that the man whodandled the purse meant to meet his bargain.

  These were the soldierly virtues. But, further, there was not a man inthe room who would have felt the smallest compunction in cutting anyman's throat if he had full pockets, or shaming any woman's honor if shehad good looks. These were their brigand's vices. Fearless in theirconduct, filthy in their lives, the assembled rogues were as ugly a bunchof brutalities as ever sprawled in a brothel, brawled in a tavern, orcrawled from some dark corner to cut down their unsuspicious prey.

  The six fellows that sat around the wine-stained, knife-notched table ofthe Inn of the Seven Devils had little in them to interest a seriousstudent of humanity, if such a one had chanced, for his misfortune, tofind his way to that wicked wine-house on that wicked evening. There weredifferences of nationality among the half-dozen; that was plain enoughfrom their features and from their speech, for though they all talked, orthought they talked, in French, each man did his speaking with an accentthat betrayed his nativity. As the babbling voices rose and fell inalternations of argument that was almost quarrel, narrative that wassometimes diverting, and ribaldry that was never wit, it would seem as ifthe ruffianism of half Europe had called a conference in that squalid,horrible little inn. Guttural German notes mixed whimsically withsibilant Spanish and flowing Portuguese. Cracked Biscayan--which noSpaniard will allow to be Spanish--jarred upon the suavity of Italianaccents, and through the din the heavy steadiness of a Breton voice couldbe heard asserting itself. Though every man spoke in French, for thepurposes of the common parliament, each man swore in his own tongue; andthey all swore briskly and crisply, with a seemingly inexhaustiblevocabulary of blasphemy and obscenity, so that the foul air of that innparlor was rendered fouler still by the volley of oaths--German, Spanish,Italian, Portuguese, Biscayan, and Breton--that were fired into itssteaming, stinking atmosphere. So much for the six men that sat at thetable.

  The seventh man in the room, although he was of the same fellowship, wascuriously unlike his fellows. While the others were burly, well-set-upfellows, who held their heads high enough and thrust out their chestsvaliantly and sprawled their strong limbs at ease, the seventh man was ahunchback, short of stature and slender of figure, with a countenancewhose quiet malignity contrasted decisively with the patent brutality ofhis comrades. The difference between the one and the others wasaccentuated even in dress, for, while the swashbucklers at the tableloved to bedizen themselves with an amount of ferocious finery, andshowed in their sordid garments a quantity of color that likened them toa bunch of faded wild flowers, the hunchback was clad soberly in blackthat was well-worn, indeed, and grizzled at the seams, but neatlyattended. He sat in the window, reading intently in a little volume, and,again unlike his associates, while he read he nursed between his knees along and formidable rapier. Those at the table paid him no heed; most ofthem knew his ways, and he, on his side, seemed to be quite undisturbedin his studies by the noise and clamor of the drinking-party, and to beentirely absorbed in the delights of literature.

  But if the hunchback student was quite content to let his companions be,and to find his pleasures in scholarship of a kind, it came about thatone of his companions, in a misguided moment, found himself less contentto leave the hunchback student undisturbed. It was the one of the companythat knew least about him--Pinto the Biscayan, newest recruit in thathuddle of ruffians, and therefore the less inclined than his fellows tolet a sleeping dog lie. He had been drinking deeply, for your Biscayansare potent topers, and in the course of his cups he discovered that itirritated him to see that quiet, silent figure perched there in thewindow with its wry body as still as if it had been snipped out ofcardboard, with its comical long nose poked over a book, with itscolorless puckered lips moving, as if the reader muttered to himself themeaning of what he read, and tasted an unclean pleasure in so doing. SoPinto pulled himself to his feet, steadied himself with the aid of thetable edge, and then, with a noiseless dexterity that showed thepractised assassin, whose talent it is to pad in shadows, he crossed theroom and came up behind the hu
nchback before the hunchback was, or seemedto be, aware of his neighborhood.

  "What are you reading?" he hiccoughed. "Let us have a peep at it." Andbefore the hunchback could make an answer Pinto had picked the bookquickly from the hunchback's fingers and held it to his own face to seewhat it told about.

  Now it would have profited Biscayan Pinto very little if he had beengiven time to study the volume, at least so far as its text wasconcerned, for the little book was a manuscript copy of the _LuxuriousSonnets_ of that Pietro Aretino whom men, or rather some men, once called"The Divine." The book was illustrated as well, not unskilfully, withsketches that professed to be illuminative of the text in the manner ofGiulio Romano. These might have pleased the Biscayan, for if he had noItalian, and could, therefore, make nothing of the voluptuousness of theScourge of Princes, he could, at least, see as well as another savage themeaning of a lewd image. But the privilege was denied him. Scarcely hadhe got the book in his fingers when it was plucked from them again, andthereafter, while with his left hand the hunchback slipped the bookletinto the breast of his doublet, with his right hand he dealt Pinto such abuffet on the side of his head as sent him reeling across the floor, tobring up with a dull thud at the table against the backs of his nearestcompanions.

  Instantly all was tumult. Pinto, black with anger, screamed Biscayanmaledictions and struggled to get at his sword where it hung against thewall, while his comrades, clinging to him and impeding him, were tryingin every variety of bad French to dissuade him from a purpose which theywere well enough aware must needs end disastrously for him. For they allknew, what the raw Biscayan did not know, how strong was the arm and howterrible the sword of the hunchback whose studies Pinto had so rudely andso foolishly interrupted. As for the hunchback himself, he stood quietlyby his chair, with his hands resting on the pommel of his rapier, and adisagreeable smile twisting new hints of malignity into features thatwere malign enough in repose. Now it may be that the sight of thatfrightful smile had its effect in cooling the hot blood of the Biscayan,for, indeed, the hunchback, as he stood there, so quietly alert, sodemoniacally watchful, seemed the most terrible antagonist he had everchallenged. At least, in a little while the Biscayan, drinking in swiftlythe warnings of his companions, consented to be pacified, consented evento be apologetic on a whispered hint, that was also a whispered threat,from his leader, that there should be no brawling among friends.

  "It was only a joke, comrade," he said, sullenly, and flung himselfheavily into his empty seat. The hunchback nodded grimly.

  "I like a joke as well as any man," he said, "and can make one myself ifoccasion serve."

  Therewith he seated himself anew, and, pulling the book from his bosom,resumed his reading and his silent mouthing, while something of a gloombrooded over his fellows at the table. It was to dissipate this gloomthat presently the man who sat at the head of the table, a bald andred-faced fellow who looked a German, and who seemed to exercise somekind of headship over the others, pushed back his chair a little from theboard and glanced half anxiously and half angrily towards the inn door.Then he thumped his red fist upon the wood till the flagons clattered andrattled.

  "Why don't the late dogs come to heel?" he grumbled, speaking with astrong Teutonic accent. "It is long past the hour, and I likepunctuality."

  A Spaniard at his right hand, swarthy, not ill-looking, whom his friendscalled Pepe el Matador, grinned into the German's face.

  "Will not this string of swords serve the turn?" he said, and pointedwith a dirty, well-shaped hand to the six long rapiers that hung againstthe wall behind them.

  The Italian, Faenza, began to laugh a little, quiet, teasing laugh; thesullen Biscayan, Pinto, patted el Matador on the back; Joel de Jurgan theBreton, stared stolidly; and Saldagno the Portuguese, refreshed himselfwith a drink. Encouraged by what he conceived to be the sympathy of hiscomrades, Pepe renewed the attack. "Come, Staupitz, come," he questioned,"are not those swords long enough and sharp enough to scare the devil?"

  Staupitz struck the table again. "No, no, my children," he said, "not forthis job. Monsieur Peyrolles told me to bring nine of my babies, and ninewe must be, and nine we should be at this moment if our truants were athand."

  At this moment Saldagno set down his beaker. "I hear footsteps," he said.In the momentary silence which followed this remark, all present couldhear distinctly enough the tramp of feet outside, and in another instantthe door was flung open and the two men whom Staupitz had been expectingso impatiently made their appearance.

  If the contrast had been marked between the six men who sat at the tableand the seventh man who sat apart, the contrast that existed between thetwo new-comers was still more striking. The first to enter was a big,jovial, red-faced, black-haired man with a huge mustache and a mannerthat suggested an ebullient admiration of himself and an ebullientappreciation of all possible pleasures. He was habited much like hispredecessors, in that he was booted, cloaked, hatted, and sworded as theywere booted, cloaked, hatted, and sworded, but everything with him,owing, it may be, to his flagrant Gascon nationality, tended to anextravagance of exaggeration that made him seem almost like a caricatureof the others. His hat was bigger, his cloak more voluminous, his bootsmore assertive, his sword longer, his taste for colors at once morepronounced and more gaudy. If the others might be likened in theircoloring to faded wild flowers, this man seemed to blaze like somemonstrous exotic. He was a swashbuckler whom Callot would have loved topaint.

  While he entered the room with his air of splendid assurance thatsuggested that the Inn belonged to him, and greeted those that awaitedhim with such a nod as a monarch might accord to his vassals, he wasfollowed by one that showed in almost every particular his opposite. Thisone, that represented an extreme of Norman character as his allyrepresented an extreme of Gascon character, this one that seemed toshelter timidly behind the effulgence of his companion, was a lean,lanky, pallid fellow, clad wholly in black of a rustier and shabbier kindthan that worn by the reader in the window. From beneath his dingy blackfelt hat thin wisps of flaxen hair flowed ridiculously enough about hisscraggy neck. While his Gascon comrade entered the room with the mannerof one who carries all before him, the Norman seemed to creep, or ratherto slink, in with lack-lustre eyes peering apologetically about himthrough lowered pink eyelids, while his twitching fingers appeared toprotest apologetically for his intrusion into a society so far above hisdeserts. But if in almost every particular he was the opposite to hisfriend, in one particular, however, he resembled him, for a long rapierhung from his side and slapped against his lean calves.

  In a further regard, moreover, the two new-comers, however different theymight seem in build of body and in habit of apparel, resembled each othermore closely than they resembled any of the earlier occupants of the Innroom. There are castes in rascality as in all other trades, classes,professions, and mysteries, honorable or dishonorable, and this latestpair of knaves belonged patently to the more amiable caste ofruffianism--a higher or a lower caste, as you may be pleased to look atit. In the bold eyes of the gaudily clad Gascon, as in the uneasy eyes ofthe sable-coated Norman, there was a quality of candor which might besought for in vain among the rogues that greeted them. Certainly neitherthe Gascon nor the Norman would have seemed reassuring figures to a timidtraveller on a lonely road, and yet there was, as it were, a kind ofgentility in their composition which would have been obvious to a readerof men, and would have approved them as, in their way and of their race,trustworthy. Here, the reader of men would say, are a brace of assassinswho hold a sort of honor in their hearts, who would never skulk in acorner to stab an enemy in the back, nor wrong a wretched woman whoplainly was unwilling to be wronged--a brace of heroes. And the reader ofmen would for once in a way, have been in the right.