I moved on, scarce remarking the fellow's roughness; my eyes were still upon that face—the white, piteous face of Roxalanne. I smiled reassurance and encouragement, but even as I smiled the horror in her countenance seemed to increase. Then, as I passed on, she vanished from my sight, and I was left to conjecture the motives that had occasioned her return to Toulouse. Had the message that Marsac would yesterday have conveyed to her caused her to retrace her steps that she might be near me in my extremity; or had some weightier reason influenced her return? Did she hope to undo some of the evil she had done? Alas, poor child! If such were her hopes, I sorely feared me they would prove very idle.
Of my trial I should say but little did not the exigencies of my story render it necessary to say much. Even now, across the gap of years, my gorge rises at the mockery which, in the King's name, those gentlemen made of justice. I can allow for the troubled conditions of the times, and I can realize how in cases of civil disturbances and rebellion it may be expedient to deal summarily with traitors, yet not all the allowances that I can think of would suffice to condone the methods of that tribunal.
The trial was conducted in private by the Keeper of the Seals—a lean, wizened individual, with an air as musty and dry as that of the parchments among which he had spent his days. He was supported by six judges, and on his right sat the King's Commissioner, Monsieur de Chatellerault—the bruised condition of whose countenance still advertised the fact that we had met but yesterday.
Upon being asked my name and place of abode, I created some commotion by answering boldly “I am the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of Bardelys, of Bardelys in Picardy.”
The President—that is to say, the Keeper of the Seals—turned inquiringly to Chatellerault. The Count, however, did no more than smile and point to something written on a paper that lay spread upon the table. The President nodded.
“Monsieur Rene de Lesperon,” said he, “the Court may perhaps not be able to discriminate whether this statement of yours is a deliberate attempt to misguide or frustrate the ends of justice, or whether, either in consequence of your wounds or as a visitation of God for your treason, you are the victim of a deplorable hallucination. But the Court wishes you to understand that it is satisfied of your identity. The papers found upon your person at the time of your arrest, besides other evidence in our power, remove all possibility of doubt in that connection. Therefore, in your own interests, we implore you to abandon these false statements, if so be that you are master of your wits. Your only hope of saving your head must lie in your truthfully answering our questions, and even then, Monsieur de Lesperon, the hope that we hold out to you is so slight as to be no hope at all.”
There was a pause, during which the other judges nodded their heads in sage approval of their President's words. For myself, I kept silent, perceiving how little it could avail me to continue to protest, and awaited his next question.
“You were arrested, monsieur, at the Chateau de Lavedan two nights ago by a company of dragoons under the command of Captain de Castelroux. Is that so?”
“It is so, monsieur.”
“And at the time of your arrest, upon being apprehended as Rene de Lesperon, you offered no repudiation of the identity; on the contrary, when Monsieur de Castelroux called for Monsieur de Lesperon, you stepped forward and acknowledged that you were he.”