"We are all faithful," said Tristan l'Hermite, gruffly; "for should they put to death your Majesty, there is no one of us whom they would suffer to survive you, even if we would."
"Now, that is what I call good corporal bail for fidelity," said Le Glorieux, who, as already mentioned, with the restlessness proper to an infirm brain, had thrust himself into their company.
Meanwhile, the Seneschal, hastily summoned, was turning with laborious effort the ponderous key which opened the reluctant gate of the huge Gothic Keep, and was at last fain to call for the assistance of one of Crèvecoeur's attendants. When they had succeeded, six men entered with torches, and showed the way through a narrow and winding passage, commanded at different points by shot-holes from vaults and casements constructed behind, and in the thickness of the massive walls. At the end of this passage, arose a stair of corresponding rudeness, consisting of huge blocks of stone, roughly dressed with the hammer, and of unequal height. Having mounted this ascent, a strong iron-clenched door admitted them to what had been the great hall of the donjon, lighted but very faintly even during the daytime, (for the apertures, diminished in appearance by the excessive thickness of the walls, resembled slits rather than windows,) and now, but for the blaze of the torches, almost perfectly dark. Two or three bats, and other birds of evil presage, roused by the unusual glare, flew against the lights, and threatened to extinguish them; while the Seneschal formally apologized to the King, that the State-hall had not been put in order, such was the hurry of the notice sent to him; and adding, that, in truth, the apartment had not been in use for twenty years, and rarely before that time, so far as ever he had heard, since the time of King Charles the Simple.
"King Charles the Simple!" echoed Louis; "I know the history of the Tower now. – He was here murdered by his treacherous vassal, Herbert, Earl of Vermandois – So say our annals. I knew there was something concerning the Castle of Peronne which dwelt on my mind, though I could not recall the circumstance. – Here, then, my predecessor was slain?"
"Not here, not exactly here, and please your Majesty," said the old Seneschal, stepping with the eager haste of a cicerone, who shows the curiosities of such a place – "Not here, but in the side-chamber a little onward, which opens from your Majesty's bedchamber."
He hastily opened a wicket at the upper end of the hall, which led into a bedchamber, small, as is usual in such old buildings; but, even for that reason, rather more comfortable than the waste hall through which they had passed. Some hasty preparations had been here made for the King's accommodation. Arras had been tacked up, a fire lighted in the rusty grate, which had been long unused, and a pallet laid down for those gentlemen who were to pass the night in his chamber, as was then usual.
"We will get beds in the hall for the rest of your attendants," said the garrulous old man; "but we have had such brief notice, if it please your Majesty – And if it please your Majesty to look upon this little wicket behind the arras, it opens into the little old cabinet in the thickness of the wall where Charles was slain; and there is a secret passage from below, which admitted the men who were to deal with him. And your Majesty, whose eyesight I hope is better than mine, may see the blood still on the oak-floor, though the thing was done five hundred years ago."
While he thus spoke, he kept fumbling to open the postern of which he spoke, until the King said, "Forbear, old man – forbear but a little while, when thou mayst have a newer tale to tell, and fresher blood to show. – My Lord of Crèvecoeur, what say you?"
"I can but answer, Sire, that these two interior apartments are as much at your Majesty's disposal as those in your own Castle at Plessis, and that Crèvecoeur, a name never blackened by treachery or assassination, has the guard of the exterior defences of it."
"But the private passage into that closet, of which the old man speaks?" This King Louis said in a low and anxious tone, holding Crèvecoeur's arm fast with one hand, and pointing to the wicket door with the other.