"You deserve a better master. What am I? Lucas's puppet! Lucas's fool!" "Monsieur, it was not Lucas alone. It was a plot. You know what he said--" "Aye," he cried with bitter vehemence. "I shall remember for some time what he said. They would not kill me to make my cousin Valère duke! He was a man. But I--nom de dieu, I was not worth the killing." "It is the League's scheming, monsieur." "Oh, that does not need the saying. Secretaries don't plot against dukedoms on their own account. Some high man is behind Lucas--I dare swear his Grace of Mayenne himself. It is no secret now where Monsieur stands. Yet the king's party grows so strong and the mob so cheers Monsieur, the League dare not strike openly. So they put a spy in the house to choose time and way. And the spy would not stab, for he saw he could make me do his work for him. He saw I needed but a push to come to open breach with my father. He gave the push. Oh, he could make me pull his chestnuts from the fire well enough, burning my hands so that I could never strike a free blow again. I was to be their slave, their thrall forever!" "Never that, monsieur; never that!" "I am not so sure," he cried. "Had it not been for the advent of a stray boy from Picardie, I trow Lucas would have put his purpose through. I was blindfolded; I saw nothing. I knew my cousin Gervais to be morose and cruel; yet I had done him no harm; I had always stood his friend. I thought him shamefully used; I let myself be turned out of my father's house to champion him. I had no more notion he was plotting my ruin than a child playing with his dolls. I was their doll, mordieu! their toy, their crazy fool on a chain. But life is not over yet. To-morrow I go to pledge my sword to Henry of Navarre." "Monsieur, if he comes to the faith--" "Mordieu! faith is not all. Were he a pagan of the wilderness he were better than these Leaguers. He fights honestly and bravely and generously. He could have had the city before now, save that he will not starve us. He looks the other way, and the provision-trains come in. But the Leaguers, with all their regiments, dare not openly strike down one man,--one man who has come all alone into their country,--they put a spy into his house to eat his bread and betray him; they stir up his own kin to slay him, that it may not be called the League's work. And they are most Catholic and noble gentlemen! Nay, I am done with these pious plotters who would redden my hands with my father's blood and make me outcast and despised of all men. I have spent my playtime with the League; I will go work with Henry of Navarre!" I caught his fire. "By St. Quentin," I cried, "we will beat these Leaguers yet!" He laughed, yet his eyes burned with determination.