"Count of Crèvecoeur," said Quentin Durward, "if I answer questions which are asked in a tone approaching towards insult, it is only lest injurious inferences should be drawn from my silence respecting one to whom we are both obliged to render justice. I have acted as escort to the Lady Isabelle since she left France to retire into Flanders."
"Ho! ho!" said the Count; "and that is to say, since she fled from Plessis-les-Tours? – You, an Archer of the Scottish Guard, accompanied her, of course, by the express orders of King Louis?"
However little Quentin thought himself indebted to the King of France, who, in contriving the surprisal of the Countess Isabelle by William de la Marck, had probably calculated on the young Scotchman being slain in her defence, he did not yet conceive himself at liberty to betray any trust which Louis had reposed, or had seemed to repose in him, and therefore replied to Count Crèvecoeur's inference, "that it was sufficient for him to have the authority of his superior officer for what he had done, and he enquired no farther."
"It is quite sufficient," said the Count. "We know the King does not permit his officers to send the Archers of his Guard to prance like paladins by the bridle-rein of wandering ladies, unless he hath some politic purpose to serve. It will be difficult for King Louis to continue to aver so boldly, that he knew not of the Ladies of Croye's having escaped from France, since they were escorted by one of his own Life-guard. – And whither, Sir Archer, was your retreat directed?"
"To Liege, my lord," answered the Scot; "where the ladies desired to be placed under the protection of the late Bishop."
"The late Bishop!" exclaimed the Count of Crèvecoeur; "is Louis of Bourbon dead? – Not a word of his illness had reached the Duke – Of what did he die?"
"He sleeps in a bloody grave, my lord – that is, if his murderers have conferred one on his remains."
"Murdered!" exclaimed Crèvecoeur again – "Holy Mother of Heaven! – young man, it is impossible!"
"I saw the deed done with my own eyes, and many an act of horror besides."
"Saw it! and made not in to help the good Prelate!" exclaimed the Count, "or to raise the castle against his murderers? – Know'st thou not, that even to look on such a deed, without resisting it, is profane sacrilege?"
"To be brief, my lord," said Durward, "ere this act was done, the castle was stormed by the blood-thirsty William de la Marck, with help of the insurgent Liegeois."
"I am struck with thunder!" said Crèvecoeur. "Liege in insurrection! – Schonwaldt taken! – the Bishop murdered! – Messenger of sorrow, never did one man unfold such a packet of woes! – Speak – knew you of this assault – of this insurrection – of this murder? – Speak – thou art one of Louis's trusted Archers, and it is he that has aimed this painful arrow. – Speak, or I will have thee torn with wild horses!"
"And if I am so torn, my lord, there can be nothing rent out of me, that may not become a true Scottish gentleman. I know no more of these villainies than you, – was so far from being partaker in them, that I would have withstood them to the uttermost, had my means, in a twentieth degree, equalled my inclination. But what could I do? – they were hundreds, and I but one. My only care was to rescue the Countess Isabelle, and in that I was happily successful. Yet, had I been near enough when the ruffian deed was so cruelly done on the old man, I had saved his grey hairs, or I had avenged them; and as it was, my abhorrence was spoken loud enough to prevent other horrors."
"I believe thee, youth," said the Count; "thou art neither of an age nor nature to be trusted with such bloody work, however well fitted to be the squire of dames. But alas! for the kind and generous Prelate, to be murdered on the hearth where he so often entertained the stranger with Christian charity and princely bounty – and that by a wretch, a monster! a portentous growth of blood and cruelty! – bred up in the very hall where he has imbrued his hands in his benefactor's blood! But I know not Charles of Burgundy – nay, I should doubt of the justice of Heaven, if vengeance be not as sharp, and sudden, and severe, as this villainy has been unexampled in atrocity. And, if no other shall pursue the murderer," – here he paused, grasped his sword, then quitting his bridle, struck both gauntleted hands upon his breast, until his corslet clattered, and finally held them up to Heaven, as he solemnly continued – "I – I, Philip Crèvecoeur of Cordès, make a vow to God, Saint Lambert, and the Three Kings of Cologne, that small shall be my thought of other earthly concerns, till I take full revenge on the murderers of the good Louis of Bourbon, whether I find them in forest or field, in city or in country, in hill or plain, in King's court, or in God's church! and thereto I pledge lands and living, friends and followers, life and honour. So help me God and Saint Lambert of Liege, and the Three Kings of Cologne!"
When the Count of Crèvecoeur had made his vow, his mind seemed in some sort relieved from the overwhelming grief and astonishment with which he had heard the fatal tragedy that had been acted at Schonwaldt, and he proceeded to question Durward more minutely concerning the particulars of that disastrous affair, which the Scot, nowise desirous to abate the spirit of revenge which the Count entertained against William de la Marck, gave him at full length.
"But those blind, unsteady, faithless, fickle beasts, the Liegeois," said the Count, "that they should have combined themselves with this inexorable robber and murderer, to put to death their lawful Prince!"
Durward here informed the enraged Burgundian that the Liegeois, or at least the better class of them, however rashly they had run into the rebellion against their Bishop, had no design, so far as appeared to him, to aid in the execrable deed of De la Marck; but, on the contrary, would have prevented it if they had had the means, and were struck with horror when they beheld it.
"Speak not of the faithless, inconstant, plebeian rabble!" said Crèvecoeur. "When they took arms against a Prince, who had no fault, save that he was too kind and too good a master for such a set of ungrateful slaves – when they armed against him, and broke into his peaceful house, what could there be in their intention but murder? – when they banded themselves with the wild Boar of Ardennes, the greatest homicide in the marches of Flanders, what else could there be in their purpose but murder, which is the very trade he lives by? And again, was it not one of their own vile rabble who did the very deed, by thine own account? – I hope to see their canals running blood by the light of their burning houses. Oh, the kind, noble, generous lord, whom they have slaughtered! – Other vassals have rebelled under the pressure of imposts and penury; but the men of Liege, in the fulness of insolence and plenty." – He again abandoned the reins of his war-horse, and wrung bitterly the hands, which his mail-gloves rendered untractable. Quentin easily saw that the grief which he manifested was augmented by the bitter recollection of past intercourse and friendship with the sufferer, and was silent accordingly; respecting feelings which he was unwilling to aggravate, and at the same time felt it impossible to soothe.
But the Count of Crèvecoeur returned again and again to the subject – questioned him on every particular of the surprise of Schonwaldt, and the death of the Bishop; and then suddenly, as if he had recollected something which had escaped his memory, demanded what had become of the Lady Hameline, and why she was not with her kinswoman? "Not," he added contemptuously, "that I consider her absence as at all a loss to the Countess Isabelle; for, although she was her kinswoman, and upon the whole a well-meaning woman, yet the Court of Cocagne never produced such a fantastic fool; and I hold it for certain, that her niece, whom I have always observed to be a modest and orderly young woman, was led into the absurd frolic of flying from Burgundy to France, by that blundering, romantic, old, match-making and match-seeking idiot!"