"Aye," said the incorrigible Jean, arguing the matter with Scots persistency, "but the Bearnais takes a good deal out of himself. He is little likely to last so long as that. However, let us do the best we can sing!"
So they sang the famous Huguenot verses made in the desert by Louis-of-the-Hermitage.
"Why cannot they sing their psalms at proper hours," he grumbled, "as before a battle or on Sunday, leaving me to sleep now when I am weary and must ride far on the morrow?"
The psalm went on. Sleepily, the King searched for a boot to throw in the direction of the disturbance, possibly under the impression that his sentinels were chanting at their posts a habit which, though laudable in itself, he had been compelled to forbid from a military point of view. The Bearnais discovered, by means of a spur which scratched him sharply, that his boots were on his feet. He muttered yet more loudly.
"His morning prayers," said Anthony in Jean's ear; "his mother, Jeanne the Queen, was ever like that. She waked with blessing on her lip so also her son."
"I doubt," said Jean-aux-Choux.
"Sing gabble less concerning the Anointed of God," commanded Anthony Arpajon.
And they sang the second time.
"His mother's picture even from here methinks I recognise the features," asserted the faithful Anthony.
"Most touching!" interjected Jean-aux-Choux.
"It astonishes you," said Anthony Arpajon, "but that is because you are a stranger "
"And ye would take me in," muttered Jean under his breath.
"But in our country of Bearn we all worship our mothers with us it is a cult."
"I have noticed it," said Jean-aux-Choux. "In my country we have it also, with this difference in Scotland it is for our children's mothers, chiefly before marriage."
But at this moment they heard the voice of the King within.
"Where is D'Aubigné? Why does he not insure quiet in the house? I have ridden far and would sleep! Surely even a king may sleep sometimes?"
"Your Majesty, it is I Anthony Arpajon, the Calvinist, and with me is John Stirling, the Scot, called Jean-aux-Choux, the Fool of the Three Henries."
"And what does he want with this Henry does he jest by day and sing psalms by night?"
"I have to inform Your Majesty," said Jean-aux-Choux, "that the Duke d'Epernon is below, and would see the King of Navarre."
Now there was neither blessing nor cursing. The Bearnais did not kiss the picture of his mother. A scabbard clattered on the stone floor, was caught deftly, and snapped into its place on his belt.
"Where is my other pistol? Ah, I remember D'Aubigné took it to clean. Lend me one of yours, Jean-aux-Choux. Is it primed and loaded?"
"He is with my lady mistress, the daughter of Francis the Scot, and with him are only the Sorbonne doctor and your cousin D'Albret for all retinue."
"Oh, ho," said Henry of Navarre, "a lady more dangerous still.
Hold the candle there, Jean-aux-Choux. I must look less like a hodman and more like a king."
And he drew from his inner pocket a little glass that fitted a frame, and a pocket-comb, with which he arranged his locks and the curls of his beard with a care at which the stout Calvinist, Anthony Arpajon, chafed and fumed.
"It is for the sake of his mother," whispered Jean in his ear, to comfort him, after the King had finished at last and signified that he was ready to descend. "She taught him that cleanliness is next to godliness," said Jean, "and now, when he is a man, the habit clings to him still."
"If he were somewhat less of a man," said the Calvinist, in the same whisper, "he would be the better king."
"Ah, wait," said Jean-aux-Choux "wait till you have seen him on a battle-front, and you will be sure that, for all his faults, there never was a more manly man or a kinglier king!"
CHAPTER XIII. A MIDNIGHT COUNCIL
There was, on the side of the Duke, some attempt at a battle of eyes. But, after all, he had only been the little scion of a Languedocean squire when the Bearnais was already the Bearnais.
The Duke bowed himself as if to set knee to the ground, but Henry caught him up.
"Caumont," he said, using the old boyish name by which they had known each other in their wild Paris youth, "you have never liked me. You have never been truly my friend. Why do you come to seek me now?"
The busy scheming brain behind the Valois favourite's brow was working. He had a bluff subject to deal with, therefore he would be bluff.
"Your Majesty," he said, "there is no one in all France who wishes better to your cause, or more ill to the League than I. When you are King, you shall have no more faithful or obedient subject. But friendship, like love, is born of friendship; it comes not by command. When the King of Navarre makes me his friend, I shall be his!"
"Spoken like a man, and no courtier," cried the Bearnais, slapping his strong hand into the white palm of D'Epernon with a report like a pistol; "I swear I shall be your friend till the day I die!"