"Honour! God's name sir, I am your honour." The sudden storm that possessed him frightened me, so fierce was it, so malevolent. His dull lacklustre eyes blazed up like powder sparks, and he shook his clenched fist at me as if he desired nothing better than to strike me down. "We have no room for if's in Plessis, no, nor out of it, on the King's service. If?—If?—do you serve me, or do you not?"
"With the blessing of God, yes, Sire," I answered.
"Ah!" and the lean hands went together, the fingers pointing upwards, following the direction of his eyes. "If the blessing of God be not with us we are indeed undone. His mercy forbid we should ever seek aught contrary to His will. But I have often found that what I willed, He was graciously pleased to will also, and this service, Monsieur de Helville, is one peculiarly pleasing to God Almighty. Tell me, why did you file the bars of The Four Nations?"
The question caught me unawares, and for two reasons I had no answer ready; one, that I am unready in a lie and had not filed the bars at all; the other, that my first impulse had been to let Jan Flemael do his own filing, follow what might. Louis was quick to catch my embarrassment, and shrewd to understand it, at least in part.
"So, so!" he said. "You, too, are of Flanders, Monsieur Hellewyl? But let that pass. I judge a man by his acts, and whatever your first thought was in the end you filed the bars. But why? Why? You, too, being of Flanders."
By this time I had my wits at command, and could have lied with a courtier-like straight face, protesting against the imputation, but that I knew he would have scoffed at the pretence. Jump with his mood, said Monsieur de Commines, and as his mood seemed to desire the truth, I told it.
"For the sake of peace, Sire. The wolves would have torn France. Better one man die than——"
"A whole nation perish! My own thought, Monsieur de Helville, of a verity my own thought, as God's my witness." Crossing his breast hastily, he put a hand under him, pushing himself to his feet, and stood facing me, his back arched, his limbs trembling in weakness, but with the virile fire of the eyes unquenched, indomitable in their masterful purpose. "I, too, desire peace, and shall one life stand between to say No! to me? Peace to France, peace—oh yes, yes, yes"—and he laughed a little cackling laugh, nodding his trembling head in time to the merriment—"peace, too, to Navarre; poor distracted Navarre that needs peace even more than does France! It is a Christian act to bring peace, a Christian act. Monsieur de Helville, does the service suit you?"
"A life, you said, Sire: whose life?"
For a moment or two the King stood silent, one lean transparent hand laid across his narrow chest as if for warmth, the other covered his mouth so that the chin rested on the palm while the teeth gnawed at the finger nails.