Flower o' the lily: A romance of old Cambray

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

We may take it that M. le Baron d'Inchy, at whose invitation the Duc d'Anjou had come to Cambray, was not likely to let the matter of the midnight duel remain unpunished, the moment he learned the full facts about the affair. The epistle of Maître Jehan had put him on the scent, and it must be remembered that M. le Baron d'Inchy ruled over Cambray and the Cambrésis with the full autocratic power of a conqueror, and that he had therefore more than one means at his disposal for forcing the truth from unwilling witnesses if he had a mind.

That truth, as confessed by the night watchmen, was nothing short of appalling. Monseigneur the governor's first thought had been one of ample—not to say, obsequious—apologies to His Highness for the outrage against his person. But Monsieur being sick, and etiquette forbidding Monseigneur the governor's visit to so humble an hostelry as that of 'Les Trois Rois,' M. d'Inchy had bethought himself of Messire Gilles de Crohin, the equerry, had sent for him and begged him to transmit to His Highness all those excuses which he—the governor—would have wished to offer in person. Fortunately, the equerry had been able to assure Monseigneur that His Highness appeared inclined to look on the affair with leniency. Whereupon d'Inchy had seen him depart again, feeling still very wrathful but decidedly easier in his mind.

Then he sent for de Landas.

De Landas was sick of his wounds, feverish and in the leech's hands; but the order to present himself before the governor was so peremptory that he dared not refuse. He knew well that nothing but unbridled anger would cause Monseigneur to issue such an arbitrary order and that it would neither be wise nor even safe to run counter to his will.

So de Landas had his wounds re-dressed and bandaged; he took the cooling draught which the leech had prepared for him, and then he ordered four of his men to carry him on a stretcher to the Archiepiscopal Palace. But all this show of sickness did not have the effect of softening Monseigneur's mood. He ordered de Landas very curtly to dismiss his stretcher-bearers, then he motioned him to a seat, himself sat down behind his desk and fixed searching eyes upon his young kinsman.

'I have sent for you, José,' he began sternly, 'and for you alone, rather than for the whole of your gang, because you have constituted yourself their leader, and they invariably follow you like so many numskulls, in any mischief which you might devise.'

'Mon cousin——' stammered de Landas, abashed, despite himself, by d'Inchy's dictatorial tone.

'One moment,' broke in the latter harshly. 'Let me tell you at once that explanations and prevarications are useless. I received a hint of what occurred last night primarily from an outside source, but you will understand that a clue once obtained can very easily be followed up. We questioned your varlets, put the night watchmen to the torture; they confessed everything, and you, M. le Marquis de Landas, my kinsman, and half a dozen of your precious friends, stand convicted of an attempt at assassination against the person of a stranger, who happens to be my guest.'

De Landas, feeling himself cornered, made no attempt to deny. It certainly would have been useless. Unfortunately he had allowed his jealousy to get the better of his prudence, and last night had made more than one mistake—such, for instance, as not killing the watchmen outright instead of merely overpowering them, and employing his own men rather than a few paid spadassins, who could not afterwards have been traced. So he sat on, sullen and silent, his arm resting on that of the chair, his chin buried in his hand.

'For that attempted crime,' resumed Monsieur le Baron d'Inchy, after a slight pause, and speaking in a trenchant and staccato tone, 'I have decided to expel you and your five friends out of the city.'

De Landas, forgetting his wounds and his sickness, jumped to his feet as if he had been cut with a lash.

'Expel me——?' he stammered. He could scarcely frame the words. He was grey to the lips and had to steady himself against the table or he would have measured his length on the floor.

'You and your friends,' reiterated d'Inchy with uncompromising severity. 'Would you perchance prefer the block?'

But already de Landas had recovered some of his assurance.

'This is monstrous!' he exclaimed hotly. 'I, your kinsman! Herlaer, Maarege—some of your most devoted friends...!'

'No one is a friend,' retorted d'Inchy firmly, 'who is a law-breaker and a potential assassin!'

'Monseigneur!' protested de Landas.

'Well! What else were you all last night?'

'We had no intention of killing the rogue.'

'And attacked him, six to one!'

'His impudence deserved chastisement. We only desired to administer a lesson.'

'In what form, I pray you?' queried d'Inchy with a short ironical laugh.

'We had some sticks in reserve——"

'Sticks!' thundered d'Inchy, who at the words had jumped to his feet and in his wrath brought down his clenched fist with a crash upon the table. 'Sticks!! You had thought ... you would dare ... to raise your hands against ... against ... Oh, my God!' he exclaimed in horror as he sank down once more into his chair and, resting his elbows on the table, he buried his face in his hands. Evidently he was quite unnerved.

De Landas had remained silent. Of a truth he had been struck dumb by this extraordinary show of what amounted almost to horror on the part of his usually dignified and self-contained kinsman. It seemed as if he—de Landas—had said something awful, something stupendous when he spoke of administering chastisement to a vagabond. A vagabond indeed! What else was this so-called Prince de Froidmont? Whence did he come? What was his purpose in coming to Cambray? And why should Monseigneur the governor be so completely unnerved at the bare possibility of any one laying hands on so obscure a personage?

But this was obviously not the moment for demanding an explanation. De Landas, ere he left his own fatherland in order to seek fortune in Flanders, had already been well schooled in those arts of diplomacy and procrastination for which Spanish statesmen were famous. He scented a mystery here, which he then and there vowed to himself that he would fathom; but this was not the time to betray his own suspicions. He knew well enough that these wooden-headed Flemings were for ever hatching plots for the overthrow of their Spanish conquerors, that His Majesty the King of Spain had hardly one faithful or loyal subject among these boors, who were for ever prating of their independence and of their civil and religious liberties. De Landas' quick, incisive mind had already jumped to the conclusion that, in this mystery which surrounded the personality of this enigmatic Prince de Froidmont, there was no doubt the beginnings of one of those subtle intrigues, which had already filched from the kingdom of Spain more than one of her fair Flemish provinces. But the young man had up to now been too indolent and too self-indulgent to trouble himself much about the dangers which threatened his country through the brewing of these intrigues. He was of a truth ready to find fortune in Flanders and to marry the richest heiress in the land if he could, and then to remain loyal to the country of his adoption if it continued to suit his purpose so to do; but if, as he began now vaguely to fear, his plans with regard to Jacqueline were thwarted for the sake of some unknown suitor, however highly placed, if the golden apple which he had hoped to gather in this mist-laden land turned to dead-sea fruit in his hand, then he would no longer consider himself bound by allegiance to this alien country; rather would his loyalty to King Philip of Spain demand that he should combat every machination which these abominable Flemings might set afoot, for the overthrow of Spanish power.

But all this was for the future. De Landas was astute enough not to betray a single one of his thoughts at the moment—not until he had surveyed the whole situation in cold blood and discussed it with his friends. For the nonce, conciliation was the only possible—the only prudent—course of action, and humility and resignation the only paths thereto.

So he waited a minute or two until d'Inchy had mastered his extraordinary emotion. Then he said meekly:

'Monseigneur, you see me utterly confounded by your anger. On my honour, I and my friends sinned entirely in ignorance. We thought the stranger presumptuous in the presence of Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, who in our sight is almost a divinity. We desired to teach a malapert a lesson for daring to approach the greatest lady in Flanders otherwise than on bended knees. We had no thought,' he added insidiously, 'that in so doing we might be attacking a personage whom Monseigneur desires to hold in especial honour.'

'Even if the stranger was a person of no consequence,' rejoined d'Inchy more calmly, 'your conduct was outrageous——'

'As it is, I am humbled in the dust at thought that it put a spoke in the wheel of some deep-laid political plans.'

'I did not say that——' broke in d'Inchy quickly.

'Oh, Monseigneur!' protested de Landas gently, 'you deign to belittle mine intelligence. I may be a young jackanapes, but I am not such a crass fool as not to realize that the person whom I only thought to chastise, as I might some insignificant groundling, must be a gentleman of more than ordinary consequence, else you would not punish me so severely for so venial an offence.'

'It is my duty——'

'To expel six noble gentlemen from their homes for laying hands on an unknown adventurer? Fie, Monseigneur! Your estimate of my reasoning powers must of a truth be a very low one.'

'You have gravely erred against the laws of hospitality.'

'I am prepared to lick the dust in my abasement.'

'You have offended a stranger who was my guest.'

'I will offer him my abject excuses, tell him that I mistook him for a caitiff.'

'He would not accept your excuses.'

'Is he such a high and mighty prince as all that?' retorted de Landas.

It was an arrow shot into the air, but it evidently hit the mark, for d'Inchy had winced at the taunt.

'M. le Prince de Froidmont has been too gravely affronted,' he said stiffly, 'for excuses to be of any avail.'

'Let me try them, at any rate,' riposted de Landas, almost servilely now.

'I don't know—I——'

'Ah! but Monseigneur, I entreat you, listen. I am your friend, your kinsman, have served this land faithfully, devotedly, for years! I have no wish to pry into your secrets, to learn anything of which you desire to keep me in ignorance. But think—think!! Others would not be so scrupulous as I. Gossip flies about very quickly in this city, and rumours would soon take wider flight, if it became known that you had punished with such unyielding rigour six of your best friends, one of them your own kinsman, for daring to quarrel with a masked stranger whom nobody knows, and who has entered this city in the strictest incognito. People will deduce unpleasant conclusions: some will call the stranger a Spanish spy, and you, Monseigneur, a paid agent of Spain. At best, rumour will be busy with speculations and conjectures which will jeopardize all your plans. In pleading for mercy, Monseigneur,' urged de Landas with well-feigned ingenuous enthusiasm, ''tis not so much mine own cause that I advocate, but rather that of your own peace of mind and the fulfilment of all your secret desires.'

D'Inchy made no immediate reply. No doubt the Spaniard's specious arguments had struck him as sound. He knew well enough how difficult it was, these days, to keep tongues from wagging, and until the affair with Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, was irrevocably concluded, gossip would prove a deadly danger, not only to the plans which he and de Lalain had laid so carefully, but also to themselves and to their adherents. This knowledge caused him to weaken in his attitude toward de Landas. He sat there, frowning, silent, obviously hesitating already.

We must always remember also that the Flemings—whether lords or churls—had never been able to hold their own against Spanish diplomacy and Spanish cunning. Their mind was too straightforward, too simple, yes! too childish, to understand the tortuous subtleties practised by these past masters of mental craftiness.

D'Inchy, de Lalain, de Montigny and their friends had plunged up to the neck in a sea of intrigue. They were already floundering, out of their depth. D'Inchy, ingenuous and inherently truthful, had never suspected de Landas of duplicity—had, of a truth, never had cause to suspect him—therefore now he took the young Spaniard's protestations, his meekness, his well-timed warning, entirely at their face value. De Landas was looking him straight in the face while he spoke, and d'Inchy was duly impressed by the air of straightforwardness, of youthful enthusiasm, wherewith the young man punctuated his impassioned tirade; and the latter, quick to note every change in the Fleming's stern features, pursued his advantage, pressed home his pleadings, half certain already of success.

'Let me go forthwith, Monseigneur,' he begged, 'to offer my humble apologies to—to—Monsieur—er—le Prince de Froidmont. Though you may think that we tried to murder him last night, we crossed swords with him like loyal gentlemen. I and my friends will meekly admit our errors. He is too chivalrous, believe me, not to forgive.'

Obviously d'Inchy was yielding. Perhaps he had never been very determined on punishing those young coxcombs, had been chiefly angered because he feared that in his wrath Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, might incontinently shake the dust of inhospitable Cambray from off his velvet shoes. Above all things, d'Inchy dreaded gossip about the affair, and de Landas had indeed proved himself a master in the art of self-defence when he prophesied the birth of countless rumours if wholesale expulsions and punishments followed the midnight brawl.

'Have I your permission to go, Monseigneur?' insisted de Landas. 'Sick as I am, I can yet crawl as far as the hostelry where lodges the enigmatic Prince de Froidmont.'

Again d'Inchy winced. He felt his secret escaping from the safe haven of his own keeping. He sat on in silence, meditating for awhile. After all, Monsieur's equerry had assured him that His Highness was disposed to look leniently on the episode, and who could be more royalist then the King? more Catholic than the Pope? Gradually the tensity of his attitude relaxed, the dark frown disappeared from between his brows; he still looked sternly on his young kinsman, but the latter saw that the look was no longer menacing.

A few minutes later Monseigneur d'Inchy had spoken the word which caused de Landas to give a deep sigh of relief.

'Very well!' he said. 'You may try. But understand,' he added inflexibly. 'If Monsieur—I mean, if M. le Prince de Froidmont does not accept your apology, if he demands your punishment, you leave Cambray to-night.'

'I understand, Monseigneur,' said de Landas simply.

'And if the Prince does accept your apology, and I do condone your offence this time, your punishment will be all the more severe if you transgress again. It would not be a sentence of expulsion then, but one of death. Now you may go!' he concluded curtly. 'My leniency in the future will depend upon your conduct.'

After which, he dismissed de Landas with a stiff inclination of the head, and the young Spaniard left the presence of the autocratic governor of Cambray with rage in his heart and a veritable whirlpool of conjectures, of surmises and of intrigues seething in his fertile brain.