THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
to abandon him. Tavannes held out for a time longer, but at length he too gave up.
Except Charles and a few outriders who, excited over a promised reward, would not leave the King, everyone had gathered about the open space in the centre of the wood. The two princes were together on a narrow path, the Duc de Guise and his gentlemen had halted a hundred feet from them. Further on were the ladies.
“Does it not really seem,” said the Duc d’Alençon to Henry, indicating by a wink the Duc de Guise, “that that man with his escort sheathed in steel is the real king? Poor princes that we are, he does not even honor us by a glance.”
“Why should he treat us better than we treat our own relatives?” replied Henry. “Why, brother, are not you and I prisoners at the court of France, hostages from our party?”
Duc François started at these words, and looked at Henry as if to provoke further explanation; but Henry had said more than he usually did and was silent.
“What do you mean, Henry?” asked the Duc François, visibly annoyed that his brother-inlaw by stopping had left him to open the conversation.
“I say, brother,” said Henry, “that all these men who are so well armed, whose duty seems to be not to lose sight of us, look exactly like guards preventing two people from running away.”
“Running away? why? how?” asked D’Alençon, admirably successful in his pretended surprise and innocence.
“You have a magnificent mount, François,” said Henry, following out his thoughts, while apparently changing the conversation. “I am sure he could make seven leagues in an hour, and twenty between now and noon. It is a fine day. And one feels like saying good-by. See the beautiful cross-road. Does it not tempt you, François? As to me, my spurs burn me.”
François did not reply. But he first turned red and then white. Then he bent his head, as if listening for sounds from the hunters.
“The news from Poland is having its effect,” said Henry, “and my dear brother-inlaw has his plans. He would like me to escape, but I shall not do so by myself.”
Scarcely had this thought passed through his mind before several new converts, who had come to court during the past two or three months, galloped up and smiled pleasantly on the two princes. The Duc d’Alençon, provoked by Henry’s remarks, had but one word to say, one gesture to make, and it was evident that thirty or forty horsemen, who at that moment gathered around them as though to oppose the troop belonging to Monsieur de Guise, favored his flight; but he turned aside his head, and, raising his horn to his lips, he sounded the rally. But the newcomers, as if they thought that the hesitation on the part of the Duc d’Alençon was due to the presence of the followers of the De Guises, had by degrees glided among them and the two princes, and had drawn themselves up in echelons with a strategic skill which showed the usual military disposition. In fact, to reach the Duc d’Alençon and the King of Navarre it would have been necessary to pass through this company, while, as far as eye could reach, a perfectly free road stretched out before the brothers.
Suddenly from among the trees, ten feet from the King of Navarre, another gentleman appeared, as yet unperceived by the two princes. Henry was trying to think who he was, when the gentleman raised his hat and Henry recognized him as the Vicomte de Turenne, one of the leaders of the Protestant party, who was supposed to be in Poitou.
The vicomte even ventured to make a sign which clearly meant,
“Will you come?”
But having consulted the impassable face and dull eye of the Duc d’Alençon, Henry turned his head two or three times over his shoulder as if something was the matter with his neck or doublet.
This was a refusal. The vicomte understood it, put both spurs to his horse and disappeared in the thicket. At that moment the pack was heard approaching, then they saw the boar followed by the dogs cross the end of the path where they were all gathered; then Charles IX., like an infernal hunter, hatless, the horn at his mouth blowing enough to burst his lungs; three or four outriders followed. Tavannes had disappeared.
“The King!” cried the Duc d’Alençon, and he rode after him.
Reassured by the presence of his good friends, Henry signed to them not to leave, and advanced towards the ladies.
“Well!” said Marguerite, taking a few steps towards him.
“Well, madame,” said Henry, “we are hunting the wild boar.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, the wind has changed since morning; but I believe you predicted this.”
“These changes of the wind are bad for hunting, are they not, monsieur?” asked Marguerite.
“Yes,” said Henry; “they sometimes upset all plans, which have to be made over again.” Just then the barking of the dogs began to be heard as they rapidly approached, and a sort of noisy dust warned the hunters to be on their guard. Each one raised his head and listened.
Almost immediately the boar appeared again, but instead of returning to the woods, he followed the road that led directly to the open space where were the ladies, the gentlemen paying court to them, and the hunters who had given up the chase.
Behind the animal came thirty or forty great dogs, panting; then, twenty feet behind them, King Charles without hat or cloak, his clothes torn by the thorns, his face and hands covered with blood.
One or two outriders were with him.
The King stopped blowing his horn only to urge on his dogs, and stopped urging on his dogs only to return to his horn. He saw no one. Had his horse stumbled, he might have cried out as did Richard III.: “My kingdom for a horse!” But the horse seemed as eager as his master. His feet did not touch the ground, and his nostrils breathed forth fire. Boar, dogs, and King passed like a dream.
“Halloo! halloo!” cried the King as he went by, raising the horn to his bloody lips.
A few feet behind him came the Duc d’Alençon and two outriders. But the horses of the others had given out or else they were lost.
Everyone started after the King, for it was evident that the boar would soon be taken.
In fact, at the end of about ten minutes the animal left the path it had been following, and sprang into the bushes; but reaching an open space, it ran to a rock and faced the dogs.
At the shouts from Charles, who had followed it, everyone drew near.
They arrived at an interesting point in the chase. The boar seemed determined to make a desperate defence. The dogs, excited by a run of more than three hours, rushed on it with a fury which increased the shouts and the oaths of the King.
All the hunters formed a circle, the King somewhat in advance, behind him the Duc d’Alençon armed with a musket, and Henry, who had nothing but his simple hunting knife.
The Duc d’Alençon unfastened his musket and lighted the match. Henry moved his knife in its sheath.
As to the Duc de Guise, disdainful of all the details of hunting, he stood somewhat apart from the others with his gentlemen. The women, gathered together in a group, formed a counterpart to that of the duke.
Everyone who was anything of a hunter stood with eyes fixed on the animal in anxious expectation.
To one side an outrider was endeavoring to restrain the King’s two mastiffs, which, encased in their coats of mail, were waiting to take the boar by the ears, howling and jumping about in such a manner that every instant one might think they would burst their chains.
The boar made a wonderful resistance. Attacked at once by forty or more dogs, which enveloped it like a roaring tide, which covered it by their motley carpet, which on all sides was striving to reach its skin, wrinkled with bristles, at each blow of its snout it hurled a dog ten feet in the air. The dogs fell back, torn to pieces, and, with entrails dragging, at once returned to the fray. Charles, with hair on end, bloodshot eyes, and inflated nostrils, leaned