The first blow fell on the right-hand man. Fair on the boss of
his shoulder-plate, heavy as a mace, fell that huge six foot of blade.
The armour was of proof, or that head would have been shorn from his body. As it was, the man fell senseless from his horse. Promptly his companion let go the rein of Claire's pony, crying, "Help there, my Lord Duke!" And so, wheeling his horse about, put speed to it, and rode in the direction of a group of gay knights and gentlemen who, as it now appeared, had been watching the fray with some amusement without caring to meddle with it.
Then from the midst of the little crowd there came one forth, the finest and properest man Claire had ever seen. He was tall and magnificently arrayed. The cloak over his light chain-armour was of dark crimson and gold, and the six enamelled lilies on his helmet marked him as next in rank to the princes of the blood.
The cavaliers about him drew their swords, and after saluting, asked if it were the will of their Lord Duke that they should punish these caitiffs who had so battered Goulard and Moulinet.
But "My Lord" put them aside with an impatient gesture of his glove.
"It would have served Goulard and Moulinet right if they had gotten twice as much!" he said. "They meddled in what did not concern them."
All the same, as he rode forward, his eyebrows, which were thick and barred across, twitched threateningly. He threw off his crimson cloak with an impatient gesture, and suddenly shone forth in a dazzling array of steel breast-plate and chain armour, all worked and damascened with gold.
"Epernon Epernon for my life, Epernon!" muttered the Abbé John under his breath to the Professor of Eloquence; "we could not have fallen on worse!"
The King's reigning favourite and boldest soldier rode straight up to them, with the careless ease which became the handsomest man in the kingdoms of France and Navarre.
"What have we here?" he demanded. "A pretty girl, two holy men, and a scarecrow! You are Genevists Calvin's folk Huguenots! This will not do; a fair maid's place is in a king's court. I will escort her thither. My wife will have great pleasure in her society, and will make her one of her own or of the Queen's maids-of-honour. From what I hear, her elder Majesty hath great need of such!"
"Not more than His Majesty has need of men of honour about him," cried the Abbé John fiercely "aye, and has had all his life!"
"Hola, young cock-sparrow, clad in the habit of the hoodie-crow!" said D'Epernon, turning upon him, "from what stable-heap do you come that you chirp so loud?"
"From that same heap on which you serve as stable-boy, my Lord Duke!" said the Abbé John.
The Duke's brow darkened. He put his hand quickly to his gold-hilted rapier.
"Ah, pray do," sneered the Abbé John; "follow your inclination. Let the bright steel out. Get a man to hold our horses, and have at you, my good Gascon!"
By this time the Duke d'Epernon's gentlemen were spurring angrily forward, but he halted them with a wave of his hand, without turning round in his saddle or taking his eyes off John's face.
"What is your name?" he demanded, his brows twitching so quickly that the eye could scarce follow their movements.
"I am John d'Albret, nephew of the Cardinal Bourbon and "
"Cousin of the Bearnais?" sneered the Duke, his eye glittering.
"Student at the Sorbonne!" said the Abbé John firmly. "All the same, if clerk I am, I am no poor clerk, and so you will find me if, waiving my royal blood, I consent to put my steel to yours upon the sward. Come, down with you and fall on!"
Now the Duke d'Epernon was anything rather than a coward. He made a motion as if to dismount, and there is little doubt but that his intention was to match his long-trained skill and success as a swordsman against the Abbé John's mastery of the latest science of sword-play learned in the Paris salles .
But suddenly D'Epernon checked himself. Then he laughed.
"No," he said; "after all, why should we fight? We may need each other one day, and there is no honour in killing a bantam, even if he hath a left-hand strain of kingly blood in him!"
"Left-hand!" cried the Abbé John: "you lie in your throat. My blood is infinitely more dexter than your own, and I make a better use of it! I am no mignon, at least."
Now this was a bitter taunt indeed, and even the tanned face of the King's warlike favourite flushed.
"As to mignons," he said, "you look much more like one yourself, young cockerel. I have overly many scars on my cheeks for the trade. And this is, I presume, your sister to judge by the resemblance?" The Duke turned to Claire, who had been looking at him with a certain involuntary admiration. "What, no? Your niece, you say, my good Sorbonnist? I am not sure but that,
as a strict Catholic, I must object. The age is scarce canonical!"
"I am no priest," said Doctor Anatole, roughly, for this touched him on the raw. "I am only the Professor of Eloquence attached to the faculty of philosophy. And I have the honour to inform you that I travel with my niece, to put her under the care of my mother at her house near to Collioure, in Roussillon."