The covenant - James A. Michener [112]
'The good far outweighs the bad,' De Pre argued. 'Perhaps they have to do this until the others are disposed of.'
'I caught the feeling they were doing it because they liked to do it.'
The travelers reached no conclusion, but the marquis's suspicions deepened, and he might have changed his mind about Protestantism as the solution to the world's evils had he not become aware that along the roads of France there was a considerable movement of messengers scurrying here and there, and he began to wonder if perchance they were looking for him. 'What are they after?' he asked De Pre, but the farmer could not even make a sensible guess. Since it was mid-August, there was no necessity to frequent towns or cities in search of accommodation, so the men slept in fields, keeping away from traveled routes, and in this way moved across northern France toward the outskirts of Rheims. On the morning of August 25 they deemed it safe to enter a small village north of that city, and as they did so, they found the populace in a state of turmoil. Houses were aflame and no one was endeavoring to save them. Two corpses dangled from posts, their bowels cut loose. A mob chased a woman, caught up with her, and trampled her to death. Other fires were breaking out and general chaos dominated the village.
'What happens here?' the marquis called as one of the rioters rushed past with a flaming brand.
'We're killing all Protestants!' the man cried as he ran to a house whose inhabitants he did not like.
'Careful, careful!' the marquis whispered as he led his horse gingerly into the center of the rioting. 'Why are you hanging him?' he shouted to members of a mob about to throw a rope over the lower branches of a tree.
'Huguenot.'
'On whose orders?'
'Messengers from Paris. We're killing them everywhere. Cleansing the country.'
'Sir,' De Pre whispered. 'I think we should ride on.'
'I think not,' the marquis said, and with a sudden spur to his horse he swept down upon the rioters, knocked them aside, and grabbed the doomed man by his shoulders, striving vainly to swing him to safety. The man's feet were lashed so that he could not help himself, and he would have been stamped to death by the mob had not De Pre dashed in, grabbed him by the thighs, and galloped off beside the marquis.
When they were well out into the country they halted, and the nobleman asked the bound man what had taken place. 'Midnight, without warning, they leaped upon us. I hid in my barn.'
'Huguenot?'
'The same. My wife hanged. They had a list of every Protestant and tried to kill us all.'
'What will you do?'
'What can I do?'
'You can come with us. We're Huguenots too.' The frightened man rode with De Pre until they reached an isolated farm, where the marquis asked, 'Is this a good Catholic farm?'
'It is indeed,' the owner said.
'Good. We'll take that horse. We're Huguenots.'
It would be remembered in history as St. Bartholomew's Day, that awful August massacre which the Italian queen mother, Catherine de Medici, instigated to destroy Protestantism once and for all. In cities and towns across France, the followers of Calvin were knifed and stabbed and hanged and burned. Tens of thousands were slain, and when the joyous news reached Rome, Pope Gregory XIII exulted, and a cardinal gave the exhausted messenger who had brought the news across the Alps a reward of one thousand thalers. A medal was struck, showing the Pope on one side, an avenging angel on the other castigating heretics with her sword. In Spain, King Philip II, who would soon be losing his Armada to Protestant sailors from England and Holland, dispatched felicitations to Catherine on her meritorious action: 'This is one of the greatest joys of my entire life.' Lesser people celebrated in lesser ways.
Even in a village as remote as Caix the slaughter raged, and if the marquis and his farmer had been at home that fateful night, they would have