The King’s Stratagem
Short Story included
in “The King’s Stratagem”
NY: H. M. Caldwell /
A. E. Cluett, 1891
Also included “In Kings’ Byways”
London: Smith &
Elder, 1902
IN the days when Henry IV of France was
King of Navarre only, and in that little kingdom of hills and woods which
occupies the southwest corner of the larger country, was with difficulty
supporting the Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic
League—in the days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the
Pyrenees, was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty
queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable
personages took place in the picturesque town of La Reole.
La Reole still rises gray, time-worn, and
half-ruined on a lofty cliff above the broad green waters of the
On an evening shortly before the end of
the conference two men sat at play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of
which looked down from a considerable height upon the river. The hour was late, and the town silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure
on sleeping fields and long, straight lines of poplars. Within the room a silver lamp suspended from
the ceiling threw light upon the table, leaving the farther parts of the room
in shadow. The walls were hung with
faded tapestry. On the low bedstead in
one corner lay a handsome cloak, a sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the
period. Across a chair lay another cloak
and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of saddlebags, were strewn
half a dozen such trifles as soldiers carried from camp to camp—a silver
comfit-box, a jeweled dagger, a mask, and velvet cap.
The faces of the players, as they bent
over the dice, were in shadow. One—a
slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a mouth as weak, but
shaded by a dark mustache—seemed, from the occasional oaths which he let drop,
to be losing heavily. Yet his opponent,
a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left temple, and that
swaggering air which has at all times marked the professional soldier, showed
no signs of triumph or elation. On the
contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two, there was
a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes, and more than once he
looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge of his feelings or learn whether
the time had come for some experiment which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through
the window would have taken the two for only one more instance of the hawk and
pigeon.
At last the younger player threw down the
caster, with a groan.
“You have the luck of the Evil One,” he
said bitterly. “How much is that?”
“Two
thousand crowns,” replied the other without emotion. “You will play no more?”
“No!
I wish to Heaven I had never played at all!” was the answer. As he spoke the loser rose,
and going to the window stood looking moodily out.
For a few moments the elder man remained
seated, grazing at him furtively, but a length he too rose,
and, stepping softly to his companion, touched him on the shoulder. “Your pardon a moment, M. le Vicomte,” he
said. “Am I right in concluding that the
loss of this sum will inconvenience you?”
“A thousand fiends!” exclaimed the young
vicomte, turning on him wrathfully. “Is
there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would not inconvenience? As for me—“
“For you,” continued the other smoothly
filling up the pause, “shall I be wrong in saying that it means something like
ruin?”
“Well, sir, and if it does?” the young man
retorted, drawing himself up haughtily, his cheek a shade paler with
passion. “Depend upon it you shall be
paid. Do not be afraid of that!”
“Gently, gently, my friend,” the winner
answered, his patience in strong contrast with the other’s violence. “I had no intention of insulting you, believe
me. Those who play with the Vicomte de
Lanthenon are not wont to doubt his honor.
I spoke only in your own interest.
It has occurred to me, vicomte, that the matter might be arranged at
less cost to yourself.”
“How?” was the curt question.
“May I speak freely?” The vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the
other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: “You, vicomte, are Governor of Lusigny for
the King of Navarre; I, of Creance, for the King of France. Our towns lie only
three leagues apart. Could I, by any
chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny, it would be
worth more than two thousand crowns to me.
Do you understand?”
“No,” the young man answered slowly, “I do
not.”
“Think over what I have said, then,” was
the brief answer.
For a full minute there was silence in the
room. The vicomte gazed out of the
window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his companion, sitting
down, leaned back in his chair, with an air of affected carelessness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices
told that the watch were passing through the
street. The church bell struck one. Suddenly the vicomte burst into a hoarse
laugh, and, turning, snatched up his cloak and sword. “The trap was very well laid, M. le
Capitaine,” he said almost jovially; “but I am still sober enough to take care
of myself—and of Lusigny. I wish you
good-night. You shall have your money,
never fear.”
“Still, I am afraid it will cost you
dearly,” the captain answered, as lie rose and moved toward the door to open it
for his guest. His hand was already on
the latch when he paused. “Look here,”
he said, “what do you say to this, then?”
I will stake the two thousand crowns you have lost to me, and another
thousand besides against your town.
Fool! No one can hear us. If you win, you go off a free man with my
thousand. If you lose, you put me in
possession one of these fine nights.
What do you say to that? A single
throw to decide.”
The young man’s pale face reddened. He turned, and his eyes sought the table and
the dice irresolutely. The temptation
indeed came at an unfortunate moment, when the excitement of play had given way
to depression, and he saw nothing before him outside the door, on which his
hand was laid, but the cold reality of ruin.
The temptation to return, and by a single throw set himself right with
the world was too much for him. Slowly
he came back to the table. “Confound
you!” he said irritably. “I think you
are the devil himself, captain.”
“Don’t talk child’s talk!” said the other
coldly, drawing back as his victim advanced.
“If you do not like the offer you need not take it.”
But the young man’s fingers had already
closed on the dice. Picking them up he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes
gleaming with the play-fever. “If I
win?” he said doubtfully.
“You carry away a thousand crowns,”
answered the captain quietly. “If you
lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me before next
full moon. That is all.”
“And what if I lose, and not pay the
forfeit?” asked the vicomte, laughing weakly.
“I trust to your honor,” said the
captain. And, strange as it may seem, he
knew his man. The young noble of the day
might betray his cause and his trust, but the debt of honor incurred at play
was binding on him.
“Well,” said the vicomte, “I agree. Who is to throw first?”
“As you will,” replied the captain,
masking under an appearance of indifference a real excitement which darkened
his cheek, and caused the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.
“Then do you go first, said the vicomte.
“With your permission,” assented the
captain. And taking the dice up in the
caster he shook them with a practiced hand, and dropped them on the board. The throw was seven.
The vicomte took up the caster and, as he
tossed the dice into it, glanced at the window.
The moonlight shining athwart it fell in silvery sheen on a few feet of
the floor. With the light something of
the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He even made as if he would have replaced the
box on the table. But the good instinct
failed. It was too late, and with a
muttered word, which his dry lips refused to articulate, he threw the
dice. Seven!
Neither of the men spoke, but the captain
rattled the cubes, and again flung them on the table, this time with a slight
air of bravado. They rolled one over the
other and lay still. Seven
again.
The young vicomte’s brow was damp, and his
face pale and drawn. He forced a
quavering laugh, and with an unsteady hand took his turn. The dice fell far apart, and lay where they
fell. Six!
The winner nodded gravely. “The luck is still with me,” he said, keeping
his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had suddenly leapt into
them might not be seen. “When do you go
back to your command, vicomte?”
The unhappy man stood like one stunned,
gazing at the two little cubes which had cost him so dearly. “The day after to-morrow,” he muttered
hoarsely, striving to collect himself.
“Then we shall say the following evening?”
asked the captain.
“Very well.”
“We quite understand one another,”
continued the winner, eyeing his man watchfully, and speaking with more
urgency. “I may depend on you, M. le
Vicomte, I presume?”
“The Lanthenons have never been wanting to
their word,” the young nobleman answered, stung into sudden haughtiness. “If I live I will put Lusigny into your
hands, M. le Captaine. Afterward I will
do my best to recover it—in another way.”
“I shall be entirely at your disposal,”
replied the captain, bowing lightly. And
in a moment he was alone—alone with his triumph, his ambition, his hopes for
the future—alone with the greatness to which his capture of Lusigny was to be
the first step, and which he should enjoy not a whit the less because as yet
fortune had dealt out to him more blows than caresses, and he was still forty,
after a score of years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country
town.
Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow
streets the vicomte was making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair
and unhappiness most difficult to describe.
Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked back and saw how he had
thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved the dregs of his fortune at the
expense of his loyalty, how he had seen a way of escape and lost it
forever! No wonder that as he trudged
alone through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath came quickly
and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side
as a hunted animal might, uttering great sighs.
Ah, if he could only have retraced the last three hours!
Worn out and exhausted, he entered his lodging, and, securing the door behind him, stumbled up the
stone stairs and entered his room. The
impulse to confide his misfortunes to someone was so strong upon him that he
was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a chair before the
dying embers of a wood fire. In those
days a man’s natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half-friend,
half-servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at the foot
of his bed, who carried his billets-doux
and held his cloak at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed
him in illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied in
support of his suit.
The young vicomte flung his cloak over a
chair. “Get up, you rascal!” he cried
impatiently. “You pig, you dog!” he
continued, with increasing anger. “Sleeping there as though your master were not ruined by that
scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!” he
added, gazing bitterly at his follower, “you are of the canaille, and have neither honor to lose nor a town to betray!”
The sleeping man moved in his chair and
half turned. The vicomte, his patience
exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on the ground, “Will
you listen?” he said. “Or go, if you
choose look for another master. I am
ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil!
I have lost all—money, land, Lusigny itself, at the dice!”
The man, aroused at last, stooped with a
lazy movement, and picking up his hat dusted it with his hand, and rose with a
yawn to his feet.
“I am afraid, vicomte,” he said, his
tones, quiet as they were, sounding like thunder in the vicomte’s astonished
and bewildered ears, “I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny, you have lost
something which was not yours to lose!”
As he spoke he struck the embers with his
foot, and the fire, blazing up, shone on his face. The vicomte saw, with unutterable confusion
and dismay, that the man before him was not Gil at all, but the last person in
the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose,
the high forehead, and projecting chin, which the short beard and mustache
scarcely concealed, were only too well known to
him. He stepped back with a cry of
horror. “Sire!” he said, and then his
tongue failed him. He stood silent, pale,
convicted, his chin on his breast. The man
to whom he had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had conspired to
betray.
“I had suspected something of this,” Henry
of Navarre continued, after a pause, a tinge of irony in his tone. “Rosny told me that that old fox, the Captain
of Creance, was affecting your company a good deal, M. le Vicomte, and I find
that, as usual, his suspicions were well founded. What with a gentleman who shall be nameless,
who has bartered a ford and a castle for the favor of Mlle. De Luynes, and
yourself, I am blest with some faithful followers! For shame!” he continued, seating himself
with dignity, “have you nothing to say for yourself?”
The young noble stood with his head bowed,
his face white. This was ruin, indeed,
absolutely irremediable. “Sire,” he said
at last, “your Majesty has a right to my life, not to my honor.”
“Your honor!” quoth Henry, biting
contempt in his tone.
The young man started, and for a second
his cheek flamed under the well-deserved reproach; but he recovered
himself. “My debt to your Majesty,” he
said, “I am willing to pay.”
“Since pay you must,” Henry muttered
softly.
“But I claim to pay also my debt to the
Captain of Creance.”
“Oh,” the king answered. “So you would have me take your worthless
life, and give up Lusigny?”
“I am in your hands, sire.”
“Pish, sir!” Henry replied in angry astonishment. “You talk like a child. Such an offer, M. de Lanthenon, is folly, and
you know it. Now listen to me. It was lucky for you that I came in to-night,
intending to question you. You madness
is known to me only, and I am willing to overlook it. Do you hear?
Cheer up, therefore, and be a man.
You are young; I forgive you.
This shall be between you and me only,” the young prince continued, his
eyes softening as the other’s head drooped, “and you need think no more of it
until the day when I shall say to you, ‘Now, M. de Lanthenon, for France and
for Henry, strike!”
He rose as the last word passed his lips,
and held out his hand. The vicomte fell
on one knee, and kissed it reverently, then sprang to his feet again. “Sire,” he said, standing erect, his eyes
shining, “you have punished me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is only one way in which I can show my
gratitude, and that is by ridding you of a servant who can never again look
your enemies in the face.”
“What new folly is this?” said Henry
sternly. “Do you not understand that I
have forgiven you?”
“Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny, and I
must acquit myself of my debt to the Captain of Creance in the only way which
remains,” replied the young man, firmly.
“Death is not so hard that I would not meet it twice over rather than
again betray my trust.”
“This is midsummer madness!” said the king
hotly.
“Possibly,” replied the vicomte, without
emotion; “yet of a kind to which your Majesty is not
altogether a stranger.”
The words appealed strongly to that love
of the chivalrous which formed part of the king’s nature, and was one cause alike
of his weakness and his strength, which in its more extravagant flights gave
opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in its nobler and saner
expressions won victories which all his astuteness and diplomacy could not have
compassed. He stood looking with
half-hidden admiration at the man whom two minutes before he had despised.
“I think you are in jest,” he said
presently.
“No, sire,” the young man answered
gravely. “In my country they have a
proverb about us. ‘The Lanthenons,’ say they,
‘have ever been bad players, but good payers.’
I will not be the first to be worse than my name!”
He spoke with so quiet a determination
that the king was staggered, and for a minute or two paced the room in silence,
inwardly reviling the generous obstinacy of his weak-kneed supporter, yet
unable to withhold his admiration from it.
At length he stopped, with a low, abrupt exclamation.
“Wait! He cried. “I have it!
Ventre Saint Gris, man, I have
it!” His eyes sparkled, and, with a
gentle laugh, he hit the table a sounding blow.
“Ha! Ha! I have it!” he repeated
joyously.
The young noble gazed at him in surprise,
half sullen, half incredulous. But when
Henry, in low, rapid tones, had expounded his plan, the vicomte’s face underwent
a change. Hope and life sprang into
it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a moment he was on his knee, mumbling the
king’s hand, his eyes full of joy and gratitude. After that the two talked long, the murmur of
their voices broken more than once by the ripple of low laughter. When they at length separated, and Henry, his
face hidden by the folds of his cloak, had stolen away to his lodgings, where,
no doubt, more than one watcher was awaiting him with a mind full of anxious
fears, the vicomte threw open his window and looked out on the night. The moon had set, but the stars still shone
peacefully in the dark canopy above. He
remembered on a sudden., his throat choking with silent repressed emotion, that
he was looking toward his home—the stiff gray pile among the beech woods of
Navarre which had been in his family since the days of St. Louis, and which he
had so lightly risked. And he registered
a vow in his heart that of all Henry’s servants he would henceforth be the most
faithful.
Meanwhile the Captain of Creance was
enjoying the sweets of coming triumph.
He did not look out into the night, it is true, but pacing up and down
the room he planned and calculated, considering how he might make the most of
his success. He was still comparatively
young. He had years of strength before
him. He would rise. He would not easily be satisfied. The times were troubled, opportunities many,
fools many; bold men with brains and hands, few.
At the same time he knew that he could be
sure of nothing until Lusigny was actually his, and he spent the next few days
in considerable suspense. But no hitch
occurred. The vicomte made the necessary
communications to him; and men in his own pay informed him of dispositions
ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left him in no doubt that the loser
intended to pay his debt.
It was, therefore, with a heart already
gay with anticipation that the Captain rode out of Creance two hours before
Treachery apart, that is; and of treachery
there was no sign. The troopers had
scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before a figure detached itself
from one of the largest trunks, and advanced to their leader’s rein. The captain saw with surprise that it was the
vicomte himself. For a second he thought
something had gone wrong, but the young noble’s first words reassured him. “It is all right,” M. de Lanthenon whispered,
as the captain bent down to him. “I have
kept my word, and I think that there will be no resistance. The planks for crossing the moat lie opposite
the gate. Knock thrice at the latter,
and it will be opened. There are not
fifty armed men in the place.”
“Good!” the captain answered, in the same
cautious tone. “But you—“
“I am believed to be elsewhere, and must
be gone. I have far to ride
tonight. Farewell.”
“Till we meet again,” the captain
answered; and with that his ally glided away and was lost in the darkness. A cautious word set the troop again in
motion, and a very few minutes saw them standing on the edge of the moat, the
outline of the gateway tower looming above the, a shade darker than the wrack
of clouds which overhead raced silently across the sky. A moment of suspense, while one and another
shivered—for there is that in a night attack which touches the nerves of the
stoutest—and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible laid across the
moat. This was so successfully done that
it evoked no challenge, and the captain crossing quickly with some picked men
stood almost in the twinkling of an eye under the shadow of the gateway. Still no sound was heard save the hurried
breathing of those at his elbow or the stealthy tread of others crossing. Cautiously he knocked three times and
waited. The third rap had scarcely
sounded, however, before the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in,
followed by his men.
So far so good. A glance at the empty street and the porter’s
pale face told him at once that the vicomte had kept his word. But he was too old a soldier to take anything
for granted, and forming up his men as quickly as they entered, he allowed no
one to advance until all were inside, and the, his trumpet sounding a wild note
of defiance, his force sprang forward in two compact bodies and in a moment the
town awoke to find itself in the hands of the enemy.
As the vicomte had promised, there was no
resistance. In the small keep a score of
men did indeed run to arms, but only to lay them down without striking a blow
when they became aware of the force opposed to them. Their leader, sullenly acquiescing, gave up
his sword and the keys of the town to the victorious captain, who, as he sat
his horse in the middle of the market-place, giving his orders and sending off
riders with the news, already saw himself in fancy governor of a province and
Knight of the Holy Ghost.
As the red light of the torches fell on
steel caps and polished hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the
circle of white-faced townsmen, the picturesque old square looked doubly
picturesque. Every five minutes, with a
clatter of iron on the rough pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang
away to tell the news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this
occurred, the captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and
triumph.
Suddenly the low murmur of voices was
broken by a new sound, the hurried clang of hoofs, not departing but
arriving. There was something in the
noise which made the captain prick his ears, and secured for the messenger a
speedy passage through the crowd. Even
at the last the man did not spare his horse, but spurring to the captain’s
side, then and then only sprang to the ground.
His face was pale, his eyes were bloodshot. His right arm was bound up in bloodstained
cloths. With an oath of amazement, the
captain recognized the officer whom he had left in charge of Creance, and
thundered out, “What is it?”
“They have got Creance!” the man gasped,
reeling as he spoke. “They have got
Creance!”
“Who?” the captain
shrieked, his face purple with rage.
“The little man of
Almost black in the face, the captain
swore another frightful oath. It was not
only that he saw governorship and honors vanish like will-o’-the-wisps, but
that he saw even more quickly that he had made himself the laughing-stock of a
kingdom! And he had. To this day among the stories which the
southern French love to tell of the prowess and astuteness of the great Henry,
there is none more frequently told, or more frequently laughed over, than that
of the famous exchange of Creance for Lusigny.