For whatever Tavannes' motive, it was plain that he was in no hurry to
reach his destination. Nor for that matter were any of his company.
Madame St. Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from the
capital under her cousin's escort, was in an ill-humour with cities, and
declaimed much on the joys of a cell in the woods. For the time the
coarsest nature and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums and
conflicts.
The whole company, indeed, though it moved in some fashion of array with
an avant and a rear-guard, the ladies riding together, and Count Hannibal
proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peaceful a band, and one as
innocently diverted, as if no man of them had ever grasped pike or blown
a match. There was an old rider among them who had seen the sack of
Rome, and the dead face of the great Constable the idol of the Free
Companies. But he had a taste for simples and much skill in them; and
when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in the grass searching for
plants, she lost her fear of him. Bigot, with his low brow and matted
hair, was the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St. Lo's woman, who twitted
him mercilessly on his Norman patois, and poured the vials of her scorn
on him a dozen times a day. In all, with La Tribe and the Carlats,
Madame St. Lo's servants, and the Countess's following, they numbered not
far short of two score; and when they halted at noon, and under the
shadow of some leafy tree, ate their mid-day meal, or drowsed to the
tinkle of Madame St. Lo's lute, it was difficult to believe that Paris
existed, or that these same people had so lately left its blood-stained
pavements.
They halted this morning a little earlier than usual. Madame St. Lo had
barely answered her companion's question before the subject of their
discussion swung himself from old Sancho's back, and stood waiting to
assist them to dismount. Behind him, where the green valley through
which the road passed narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill stood among
willows at the foot of a mound. On the mound behind it a ruined castle
which had stood siege in the Hundred Years' War raised its grey walls;
and beyond this the stream which turned the mill poured over rocks with a
cool rushing sound that proved irresistible. The men, their horses
watered and hobbled, went off, shouting like boys, to bathe below the
falls; and after a moment's hesitation Count Hannibal rose from the grass
on which he had flung himself.
"Guard that for me, Madame," he said. And he dropped a packet, bravely
sealed and tied with a silk thread, into the Countess's lap. "'Twill be
safer than leaving it in my clothes. Ohe!" And he turned to Madame St.
Lo. "Would you fancy a life that was all gipsying, cousin?" And if
there was irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes.