Bardelys the Magnificent - Rafael Sabatini (affordable ebook reader .txt) 📗

cousin, “I was well advised, it seems,

to have brought you.”

 

“But,” Mironsac asked his cousin, as he took my hands in his own,

“why did you not tell me, Amedee, that it was to Monsieur le Marquis

de Bardelys that you were conducting me?”

 

“Would you have had me spoil so pleasant a surprise?” his cousin

demanded.

 

“Armand,” said I, “never was a man more welcome than are you. You

are but come in time to save my life.”

 

And then, in answer to his questions, I told him briefly of all that

had befallen me since that night in Paris when the wager had been

laid, and of how, through the cunning silence of Chatellerault, I

was now upon the very threshold of the scaffold. His wrath burst

forth at that, and what he said of the Count did me good to hear.

At last I stemmed his invective.

 

“Let that be for the present, Mironsac,” I laughed. “You are here,

and you can thwart all Chatellerault’s designs by witnessing to my

identity before the Keeper of the Seals.”

 

And then of a sudden a doubt closed like a cold hand upon my brain.

I turned to Castelroux.

 

“Mon Dieu!” I cried. “What if they were to deny me a fresh trial?”

 

“Deny it you!” he laughed. “They will not be asked to grant you

one.”

 

“There will be no need,” added Mironsac. “I have but to tell the

King—”

 

“But, my friend,” I exclaimed impatiently, “I am to die in the

morning!”

 

“And the King shall be told to-day - now, at once. I will go to

him.”

 

I stared askance a moment; then the thought of the uproar that I

had heard recurring to me, “Has the King arrived already?” I

exclaimed.

 

“Naturally, monsieur. How else do I come to be here? I am in His

Majesty’s train.”

 

At that I grew again impatient. I thought of Roxalanne and of how

she must be suffering, and I bethought me that every moment Mironsac

now remained in my cell was another moment of torture for that poor

child. So I urged him to be gone at once and carry news of my

confinement to His Majesty. He obeyed me, and I was left alone once

more, to pace up and down in my narrow cell, a prey to an excitement

such as I should have thought I had outlived.

 

At the end of a half-hour Castelroux returned alone.

 

“Well?” I cried the moment the door opened, and without giving him

so much as time to enter. “What news?”

 

“Mironsac tells me that His Majesty is more overwrought than he has

ever seen him. You are to come to the Palace at once. I have an

order here from the King.”

 

We went in a coach, and with all privacy, for he informed me that

His Majesty desired the affair to be kept secret, having ends of his

own to serve thereby.

 

I was left to wait some moments in an antechamber, whilst

Castelroux announced me to the King; then I was ushered into a small

apartment, furnished very sumptuously in crimson and gold, and

evidently set apart for His Majesty’s studies or devotions. As I

entered, Louis’s back was towards me. He was standing - a tall,

spare figure in black - leaning against the frame of a window, his

head supported on his raised left arm and his eyes intent upon the

gardens below.

 

He remained so until Castelroux had withdrawn and the door had closed

again; then, turning suddenly, he confronted me, his back to the

light, so that his face was in a shadow that heightened its gloom and

wonted weariness.

 

“Voila, Monsieur de Bardelys!” was his greeting, and unfriendly.

“See the pass to which your disobedience of my commands has brought

you.”

 

“I would submit, Sire,” I answered, “that I have been brought to it

by the incompetence of Your Majesty’s judges and the ill-will of

others whom Your Majesty honours with too great a confidence, rather

than by this same disobedience of mine.”

 

“The one and the other, perhaps,” he said more softly. “Though,

after all, they appear to have had a very keen nose for a traitor.

Come, Bardelys, confess yourself that.”

 

“I? A traitor?”

 

He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed without any conspicuous mirth.

 

“Is not a traitor one who runs counter to the wishes; of his King?

And are you not, therefore, a traitor, whether they call you Lesperon

or Bardelys? But there,” he ended more softly still, and flinging

himself into a chair as he spoke, “I have been so wearied since you

left me, Marcel. They have the best intentions in the world, these

dullards, and some of them love me even; but they are tiresome all.

Even Chatellerault, when he has a fancy for a jest - as in your case

perpetrates it with the grace of a bear, the sprightliness of an

elephant.”

 

“Jest?” said I.

 

“You find it no jest, Marcel? Pardieu, who shall blame you? He

would be a man of unhealthy humour that could relish such a

pleasantry as that of being sentenced to death. But tell me of it.

The whole story, Marcel. I have not heard a story worth the

listening to since - since you left us.”

 

“Would it please you, Sire, to send for the Comte de Chatellerault

ere I begin?” I asked.

 

“Chatellerault? No, no.” He shook his head whimsically.

“Chatellerault has had his laugh already, and, like the ill-mannered

dog he is, he has kept it to himself. I think, Marcel, that it is

our turn now. I have purposely sent Chatellerault away that he may

gain no notion of the catastrophic jest we are preparing him in

return.”

 

The words set me in the very best of humours, and to that it may be

due that presently, as I warmed to my narrative, I lent it a vigour

that drew His Majesty out of his wonted apathy and listlessness. He

leaned forward when I told him of my encounter with the dragoons at

Mirepoix, and how first I had committed the false step of representing

myself to be Lesperon.

 

Encouraged by his interest, I proceeded, and I told my story with as

much piquancy as I was master of, repressing only those slight matters

which might reflect upon Monsieur de Lavedan’s loyalty, but otherwise

dealing frankly with His Majesty, even down to the genuineness of

the feelings I entertained for Roxalanne. Often he laughed, more

often still he nodded approvingly, in understanding and sympathy,

whilst now and then he purred his applause. But towards the end,

when I came to the matter of the Tribunal of Toulouse, of how my

trial was conducted, and of the part played in it by Chatellerault,

his face grew set and hard.

 

“It is true - all this that you tell me?” he cried harshly.

 

“As true as the Gospels. If you deem an oath necessary, Sire, I

swear by my honour that I have uttered nothing that is false, and

that, in connection with Monsieur de Chatellerault, even as I have

suppressed nothing, so also have I exaggerated nothing.”

 

“The dastard!” he snapped. “But we will avenge you, Marcel. Never

fear it.”

 

Then the trend of his thoughts being changed, he smiled wearily.

 

“By my faith, you may thank God every night of your worthless life

that I came so opportunely to Toulouse, and so may that fair child

whose beauty you have limned with such a lover’s ardour. Nay, never

redden, Marcel. What? At your age, and with such a heavy score

of affaires to your credit, has it been left for a simple Languedoc

maiden to call a blush to your callous cheek? Ma foi, they say

truly that love is a great regenerator, a great rejuvenator!”

 

I made him no answer other than a sigh, for his words set me thinking,

and with thought came a tempering of the gay humour that had pervaded

me. Remarking this, and misreading it, he laughed outright.

 

“There, Marcel, never fear. We will not be rigorous. You have won

both the maid and the wager, and, by the Mass, you shall enjoy both.”

 

“Helas, Sire,” I sighed again, “when the lady comes to know of the

wager—”

 

“Waste no time in telling her, Marcel, and cast yourself upon her

mercy. Nay, go not with so gloomy a face, my friend. When woman

loves, she can be very merciful; leastways, they tell me so.”

 

Then, his thoughts shifting ground once more, he grew stern again.

 

“But first we have Chatellerault to deal with. What shall we do with

him?”

 

“It is for Your Majesty to decide.”

 

“For me?” he cried, his voice resuming the harshness that was never

far from it. “I have a fancy for having gentlemen about me. Think

you I will set eyes again upon that dastard? I am already resolved

concerning him, but it entered my mind that it might please you to

be the instrument of the law for me.”

 

“Me, Sire?”

 

“Aye, and why not? They say you can play a very deadly sword upon

necessity. This is an occasion that demands an exception from our

edict. You have my sanction to send the Comte de Chatellerault a

challenge. And see that you kill him, Bardelys!” he continued

viciously. “For, by the Mass, if you don’t, I will! If he escapes

your sword, or if he survives such hurt as you may do him, the

headsman shall have him. Mordieu! is it for nothing that I am

called Louis the Just?”

 

I stood in thought for a moment. Then—

 

“If I do this thing, Sire,” I ventured, “the world will say of me

that I did so to escape the payment I had incurred.”

 

“Fool, you have not incurred it. When a man cheats, does he not

forfeit all his rights?”

 

“That is very true. But the world—”

 

“Peste!” he snapped impatiently, “you are beginning to weary me,

Marcel - and all the world does that so excellently that it needs not

your collaboration. Go your ways, man, and do as you elect. But

take my sanction to slay this fellow Chatellerault, and I shall be

the better pleased if you avail yourself of it. He is lodged at the

Auberge Royale, where probably you will find him at present. Now,

go. I have more justice to dispense in this rebellious province.”

 

I paused a moment.

 

“Shall I not resume my duties near Your Majesty?”

 

He pondered a moment, then he smiled in his weary way.

 

“It would please me to have you, for these creatures are so dismally

dull, all of them. Je m’ennuie tellement, Marcel!” he sighed.

“Ough! But, no, my friend, I do not doubt you would be as dull as

any of them at present. A man in love is the weariest and most

futile thing in all this weary, futile world. What shall I do with

your body what time your soul is at Lavedan? I doubt me you are in

haste to get you there. So go, Marcel. Get you wed, and live out

your amorous intoxication; marriage is the best antidote. When that

is done, return to me.”

 

“That will be never, Sire,” I answered slyly.

 

“Say you so, Master Cupid Bardelys?” And he combed his beard

reflectively. “Be not too sure. There have been other passions -

aye, as great as yours - yet have they staled. But you waste my

time. Go, Marcel; you are excused your duties by me for as long as

your own affairs