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Gentlemen," he turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house in general, but " "Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the gentleman if he wishes it!" "You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished out a sword of huge length, and flourished it.
He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along the ramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothing strange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and a sot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mind whether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said one thing, discretion another.
I was near waiting on him after another fashion," Claude continued rather grimly. "Between him and your friend there," with a glance at Grio, who had relapsed into a moody glaring silence, "I was like to get more gyves than justice." The big man laughed. "Our friend here has served the State," he remarked, "and does what another may not.
"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albigny retorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which he had been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflers whom the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was to aid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them!
"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be," Claude answered with a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me." "You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think " "Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it.
Of what mad, what insensate folly, unworthy of a schoolboy, worthy only of a sot, an imbecile, a Grio, had he been guilty! To leave the potion, that if it had not the virtues which he ascribed to it, had virtue or it had not served his purpose of deceiving the Syndic during some days or hours to leave the potion unprotected, at the mercy of a chance hand, of a treacherous girl!
The intruder was Grio. He stood an instant scowling on them, then he entered and closed the door. He eyed the two with a sneering laugh, and, turning, flung his cloak on a chair. It was ill-aimed and fell to the ground. "Why the devil don't you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He added something in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible.
The sound led Mercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the first time the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes.
What Grio, when he came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open in such weather he did not learn, for after standing a while as Claude's ears told him opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked back the way he had come.
"No; but you see" and again the Inquisitor looked over his glasses "you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mère Royaume's, is he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the name of Grio lodging there?"
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