To aggravate the King's painful feelings, he saw, as he crossed the courtyard, one or two bodies, over each of which had been hastily flung a military cloak. He was not long in discerning that they were corpses of slain Archers of the Scottish Guard, who having disputed, as the Count Crevecoeur informed him, the command given them to quit the post near the King's apartments, a brawl had ensued between them and the Duke's Walloon bodyguards, and before it could be composed by the officers on either side, several lives had been lost.
“My trusty Scots!” said the King as he looked upon this melancholy spectacle; “had they brought only man to man, all Flanders, ay, and Burgundy to boot, had not furnished champions to mate you.”
“Yes, an it please your Majesty,” said Balafre, who attended close behind the King, “Maistery mows the meadow [maist, a Scotch form of most. That is, there is strength in numbers]—few men can fight more than two at once.—I myself never care to meet three, unless it be in the way of special duty, when one must not stand to count heads.”
“Art thou there, old acquaintance,” said the King, looking behind him; “then I have one true subject with me yet.”
“And a faithful minister, whether in your councils, or in his offices about your royal person,” whispered Oliver le Dain.
“We are all faithful,” said Tristan l'Hermite gruffly; “for should they put to death your Majesty, there is not 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 Crevecoeur'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, 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.