Mechanically, scarce knowing why he should possess himself of the miniature, yet feeling he must stop the boor's clamour somehow and get time to think; reflecting also that to keep up his appearance of a "merchant," he must buy more than the pair of pistols, he again had recourse to the leathern purse and told out ten gold pieces of five crowns into the owner's dirty palm, while as he did so the word "Remiremont," "Remiremont," was beating at his brain.
"Where, where," he murmured to himself, "is the connection between that place and De Bois-Vallée? Where?"
In a moment it had come to him!
"'He is of the pays; of Lorraine, near the Vosges, of the seigneurie of Remiremont. He will be doubly useful to Turenne in the Palatinate.'"
That was it; those almost the words! Uttered by the Court spy as he drank with Andrew at the inn in Paris! Of the seigneurie of Remiremont!
The bargaining came to an end as the clue rose to his mind; pushing the peasants aside, Andrew swiftly went down the ladder, his scabbard clanking on each rung, and the boors following--offering their wares at half, at a quarter, what they had previously demanded, now that they saw that there was no more huckstering to be done. Also, because their eyes had glinted into the leather purse and had seen many other gold pieces therein!
"Nay No more," he said; "I have done. Your treasures are too tempting. You will beggar me if I stay here. Now," laughing and pushing back with his masterful hands the men who flocked round him, begging all the time that he should miss no chance, and, therefore, offer his own price, "now, a bottle of the best, my golden hart, to drink to our next meeting, and then away. And the reckoning, too, Muhlenbein, the reckoning--though that should count as nothing with so good a customer as I!" and he laughed merrily, making even the peasants laugh too, his gaiety being infectious.
He had a little more to say, or ask, however, and it necessitated the drinking of a second bottle whereby to provide the time for obtaining the information he desired. Still, he did obtain it.
"This track," he said, "across the mountains of which you speak; to where does it lead? And Remiremont, what kind of place is that? And what leads from there?"
The second question none of them could properly answer, though one, who seemed to know more than the others, said there was a great nunnery at Remiremont itself, he thought. But as to where the road from it led, all knew. South to the old Burgundian city--the boors around him called it the "great" Burgundian city of Dijon; west, to far-off Paris, where the French King was who sent out his accursed armies; north to Flanders, where he might have heard other fightings were going on. While their town--for so they called it--of Holtzheim was to the east, but with the mountains between.