Flower o' the lily: A romance of old Cambray

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

II

Marguerite of Navarre, biting her lips and almost crying with vexation, went up to the deep window embrasure and, throwing open the casement, she rested her elbow on the sill and leaned her cheek against her hand.

The open courtyard of the hostelry was at her feet, and beyond it the market-place of the sleepy little town with its quaint, narrow houses and tall crow's foot gables and curious signs, rudely painted, swinging on iron brackets in the breeze. It was early afternoon of a mild day in February, and in the courtyard of the hostelry there was the usual bustle attendant upon the presence of a high and mighty personage and of his numerous suite.

Men-at-arms passed to and fro; burghers from the tiny city, in dark cloth clothes and sombre caps, came to pay their respects; peasants from the country-side brought produce for sale; serving-men in drab linen and maids in gaily-coloured kerchiefs flitted in and out of the hostelry and across the yard with trays of refreshments for the retinue of M. le Duc d'Anjou and of Madame la Reynede Navarre, own brother and sister of the King of France. Indeed, it was not often that so great a prince and so exalted a lady had graced La Fère with their presence, and the hostelry had been hard put to it to do honour to two such noble guests. Mine host and his wife and buxom daughters were already wellnigh sick with worry, for though Madame la Reyne de Navarre and M. le Duc, her brother, were very exacting and their gentlemen both hungry and thirsty, not one among these, from Monsieur downwards, cared to pay for what he had. And while the little town seethed with soldiery and with loud-voiced gentlemen, the unfortunate burghers who housed them and the poor merchants and peasants who had to feed them, almost sighed for the Spanish garrisons who, at any rate, were always well-paid and paying.

Down below in the courtyard there was constant jingling of spurs and rattle of sabres, loud language and ribald laughter; but when the casement flew open and the Queen of Navarre's face appeared at the window, the latter, at any rate, was at once suppressed. In the shade and across a narrow wooden bench on which they sat astride, a couple of gentlemen-at-arms were throwing dice, surrounded by a mixed and gaping crowd—soldiers, servants, maids and peasants—who exchanged pleasantries while watching the game.

Marguerite looked down on them for a moment or two, and an impatient frown appeared between her brows. She did not like the look of her brother's 'gentlemen,' for they were of a truth very much out-at-elbows, free of speech and curt of manner. The fact that they were never paid and often left in the lurch, if not actually sold to their enemies by Monsieur, accounted, no doubt, for all the laxity, and Marguerite swore to herself even then, that if ever her favourite brother reached the ambitious goal for which she was scheming on his behalf, one of his first acts of sovereignty should be to dismiss such down-at-heel, out-at-elbows swashbucklers as were, for instance, Messire Gilles de Crohin and many others. After which vow Marguerite de Navarre once more turned to her brother, trying to assume self-control and calmness which she was far from feeling. He appeared still absorbed in the contemplation of the letter, and as he looked up lazily and encountered her blazing eyes, he yawned ostentatiously.

'François!' she burst out angrily.

'Well, my dear?' he retorted.

'M. le Baron d'Inchy,' she continued more quietly, 'hath taken possession of Cambray and the Cambrésis and driven the pro-Spanish Archbishop into exile. He offers to deliver up the Cambrésis and to open the gates of Cambray to you immediately, whilst M. le Comte de Lalain will hand you over, equally readily, the provinces of Hainault, of Flanders and of Artois.'

'I know all that,' he muttered.

'You might be Duke of Hainault and Artois,' she went on with passionate enthusiasm. 'You might found a new kingdom of the Netherlands, with yourself as its first sovereign lord—and you hesitate!!! Holy Joseph! Holy Legions of Angels!' she added, with a bitter sigh of pent-up exasperation. 'What have I done that I should be plagued with such a nincompoop for a brother?'

François d'Alençon and d'Anjou laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

'The provinces are worth considering,' he said coolly. 'Cambray is attractive, and I would not object to the Duchies of Artois and Hainault, or even to a Kingdom of the Netherlands. But...!'

'Well?' she broke in testily. 'What is the "but"?'

He sighed and made a sour grimace. 'There is a bitter pill to swallow with all that sugar,' he replied. 'You appear to be forgetting that, my very impetuous sister!'

It was Marguerite's turn to shrug her pretty shoulders.

'Bah!' she said contemptuously. 'A wife! You call that a bitter pill! Jacqueline de——what is her name?'

Monsieur referred to the letter.

'Jacqueline de Broyart,' he said dryly.

'Well! Jacqueline de Broyart,' she continued, more composedly, 'is said to be attractive. M. d'Inchy says so.'

'A merchant must praise the goods which he offers for sale,' remarked Monsieur.

'And even if she be ill-favoured,' retorted Marguerite dryly, 'she brings the richest duchies in the Netherlands and the influence of her name and family as her marriage portion. Surely a kingdom is worth a wife.'

'Sometimes.'

'In this case, François,' urged Marguerite impatiently. Then, with one of those sudden changes of mood which were one of her main charms, she added with a kind of gentle and solemn earnestness: 'You in your turn appear to forget, my exasperating brother, that 'tis I who have worked for you, just as I always have done heretofore, I who made friends for you with these loutish, ill-mannered Flemings, and who prepared the way which has led to such a brilliant goal. Whilst you wasted your substance in riotous living in our beloved Paris, I was half-killing myself with ennui in this abominable Flemish climate, I was drinking the poisonous waters of Spa so as to remain in touch with the governors of all these disaffected provinces and insidiously turning their minds towards looking for a prince of the house of France to be their deliverer and their ruler. Now my labours are bearing fruit. Don John of Austria is more hated throughout the Netherlands than he was before my coming hither, the provinces are more wearied of the Spanish yoke—they are more ready to accept a foreign ruler, even though he be a Catholic to boot. You have now but to stretch a hand, and all the golden harvest prepared by me will fall into it without another effort on your part save that of a prompt decision. So let me tell you, once and for all, Monsieur my brother, that if you refuse that golden harvest now, if you do not accept the Baron d'Inchy's offer, never as long as I live will I raise another finger to help you or to advance your welfare. And this I hereby do swear most solemnly and pray to the Virgin to register my vow!'

The Duke, unaccustomed to his charming sister's earnestness, had listened to her without departing from his sullen mood. When she had finished her tirade he shrugged his shoulders and yawned.

'How you do talk, my dear Margot!' he said coolly. 'To hear you one would imagine that I was an incorrigible rogue, an immoral profligate and a do-nothing.'

'Well, what else are you?' she retorted.

'A much maligned, overworked prince.'

She laughed, and despite her choler a look of genuine affection crept into her eyes as she met the reproachful glance of the brother whom she loved so dearly, and whose faults she was always ready to condone.

'By the Mass!' quoth he. 'You talk of having worked and slaved for me—and so you have, I'll own—but, far from leading a dissipated life in Paris the while, I toiled and slaved, intrigued and conspired, too—aye, and risked my life a hundred times so that I might fall in with your schemes.'

'Oh!' she broke in with a good-natured laugh. 'Let us be just, Monsieur my brother. You allowed others to toil and slave and intrigue and conspire, and to risk their life in your cause——'

''Tis you are unjust, Margot,' he retorted hotly. 'Why, think you then, that I was arrested by order of my brother the King, and thrown into the dungeon of Vincennes——?'

'You would not have been arrested, my dear,' said Marguerite dryly, 'if you had not chosen to be arrested.'

'The King, our brother, does not approve of your schemes, my Margot.'

'He is the dog in the manger,' she replied. 'Though Flanders and Hainault and the Netherlands are not for him, he does not wish to see you a more powerful prince than he.'

'So, you see——'

'But you knew,' she broke in quickly, 'you knew four and twenty hours before the order of your arrest was issued that the King had already decided on signing it. You had ample time for leaving Paris and joining me at Spa. Six precious months would not have been wasted——'

'Well! I escaped out of Vincennes as soon as I could.'

'Yes!' she retorted, once more fuming and raging, and once more pacing up and down the room like a fretful animal in a cage. 'Procrastination! Time wasted! Shelving of important decisions!...'

He pointed leisurely to the letter.

'There's no time lost,' he said.

'Time wasted is always lost,' she argued. 'The tone of M. le Baron d'Inchy is more peremptory this time than it was six months ago. There is a "take it or leave it" air about this letter. The provinces are waxing impatient. The Prince of Orange is rapidly becoming the idol of the Netherlands. What you reject he will no doubt accept. He is a man—a man of action, not a laggard——'

'But I am not rejecting anything!' exclaimed Monsieur irritably.

'Then, for God's sake, François——!'

Marguerite de Navarre paused, standing for a few seconds quite still, her whole attitude one of rigid expectancy. The next moment she had run back to the window. But now she leaned far out of the casement, heedless if the men below saw the Queen of Navarre and smiled over her eagerness. Her keen ears had caught the sound of an approaching troop of men; the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the hard road was already drawing perceptibly nearer.

'Messire Gilles!' she called out impatiently to one of the dice-throwers, who was continuing his game unperturbed.

In a moment the man was on his feet. He looked up and saw the Queen's pretty face framed in by the casement-window; and a pretty woman was the only thing on God's earth which commanded Gilles de Crohin's entire respect. Immediately he stood at attention, silhouetted against the sunlit market-place beyond—a tall, martial figure, with face weather-beaten and forehead scarred, the record of a hundred fights depicted in every line of the sinewy limbs, the powerful shoulders, the look of self-assurance in the deep-set eyes and the strong, square jaw.