Bardelys the Magnificent, Rafael Sabatini [best free e book reader .txt] 📗

>I taxed my memory, and the events of yesternight recurred to me.

I remembered the girl, the balcony, and my flight ending in my

giddiness and my fall. Had they brought me into that same chateau,

or - Or what? No other possibility came to suggest itself, and,

seeing scant need to tax my brains with speculation, since there

was one there of whom I might ask the question—

 

“Hola, my master!” I called to him, and as I did so I essayed to

move. The act wrung a sharp cry of pain from me. My left shoulder

was numb and sore, but in my right foot that sudden movement had

roused a sharper pang.

 

At my cry that little wizened old man swung suddenly round. He had

the face of a bird of prey, yellow as a louis d’or with a great

hooked nose, and a pair of beady black eyes that observed me solemnly.

The mouth alone was the redeeming feature in a countenance that had

otherwise been evil; it was instinct with good-humour. But I had

small leisure to observe him then, for simultaneously with his

turning there had been another movement at my bedside, which drew

my eyes elsewhere. A gentleman, richly dressed, and of an imposing

height, approached me.

 

“You are awake, monsieur?” he said in a half interrogative tone.

 

“Will you do me the favour to tell me where I am, monsieur?” quoth I.

 

“You do not know? You are at Lavedan. I am the Vicomte de Lavedan

—at your service.”

 

Although it was no more than I might have expected, yet a dull wonder

filled me, to which presently I gave expression by asking stupidly—

 

“At Lavedan? But how came I hither?”

 

“How you came is more than I can tell,” he laughed. “But I’ll swear

the King’s dragoons were not far behind you. We found you in the

courtyard last night; in a swoon of exhaustion, wounded in the

shoulder, and with a sprained foot. It was my daughter who gave the

alarm and called us to your assistance. You were lying under her

widow.” Then, seeing the growing wonder in my eyes and misconstruing

it into alarm: “Nay, have no fear, monsieur,” he cried. “You were

very well advised in coming to us. You have fallen among friends.

We are Orleanists too, - at Lavedan, for all that I was not in the

fight at Castelnaudary. That was no fault of mine. His Grace’s

messenger reached me overlate, and for all that I set out with a

company of my men, I put back when I had reached Lautrec upon hearing

that already a decisive battle had been fought and that our side had

suffered a crushing defeat.” He uttered a weary sigh.

 

“God help us, monsieur! Monseigneur de Richelieu is likely to have

his way with us. But let that be for the present. You are here,

and you are safe. As yet no suspicion rests on Lavedan. I was, as

I have said, too late for the fight, and so I came quietly back to

save my skin, that I might serve the Cause in whatever other way

might offer still. In sheltering you I am serving Gaston d’Orleans,

and, that I may continue so to do, I pray that suspicion may continue

to ignore me. If they were to learn of it at Toulouse or of how

with money and in other ways I have helped this rebellion - I make

no doubt that my head would be the forfeit I should be asked to pay.”

 

I was aghast at the freedom of treasonable speech with which this

very debonnaire gentleman ventured to address an utter stranger.

 

“But tell me, Monsieur de Lesperon,” resumed my host, “how is it

with you?”

 

I started in fresh astonishment.

 

“How - how do you know that I am Lesperon?” I asked.

 

“Ma foi!” he laughed, “do you imagine I had spoken so unreservedly

to a man of whom I knew nothing? Think better of me, monsieur, I

beseech you. I found these letters in your pocket last night, and

their superscription gave me your identity. Your name is well known

to me,” he added. “My friend Monsieur de Marsac has often spoken

of you and of your devotion to the Cause, and it affords me no

little satisfaction to be of some service to one whom by repute

I have already learned to esteem.”

 

I lay back on my pillows, and I groaned. Here was a predicament!

Mistaking me for that miserable rebel I had succoured at Mirepoix,

and whose letters I bore upon me that I might restore them to some

one whose name he had failed to give me at the last moment, the

Vicomte de Lavedan had poured the damning story of his treason into

my ears.

 

What if I were now to enlighten him? What if I were to tell him

that I was not Lesperon - no rebel at all, in fact - but Marcel de

Bardelys, the King’s favourite? That he would account me a spy I

hardly thought; but assuredly he would see that my life must be a

danger to his own; he must fear betrayal from me; and to protect

himself he would be justified in taking extreme measures. Rebels

were not addicted to an excess of niceness in their methods, and it

was more likely that I should rise no more from the luxurious bed

on which his hospitality had laid me. But even if I had exaggerated

matters, and the Vicomte were not quite so bloodthirsty as was usual

with his order, even if he chose to accept my promise that I would

forget what he had said, he must nevertheless - in view of his

indiscretion - demand my instant withdrawal from Lavedan. And what,

then, of my wager with Chatellerault?

 

Then, in thinking of my wager, I came to think of Roxalanne herself

—that dainty, sweet-faced child into whose chamber I had penetrated

on the previous night. And would you believe it that I - the

satiated, cynical, unbelieving Bardelys - experienced dismay at the

very thought of leaving Lavedan for no other reason than because it

involved seeing no more of that provincial damsel?

 

My unwillingness to be driven from her presence determined me to

stay. I had come to Lavedan as Lesperon, a fugitive rebel. In that

character I had all but announced myself last night to Mademoiselle.

In that character I had been welcomed by her father. In that

character, then, I must remain, that I might be near her, that I

might woo and win her, and thus - though this, I swear, had now

become a minor consideration with me - make good my boast and win

the wager that must otherwise involve my ruin.

 

As I lay back with closed eyes and gave myself over to pondering

the situation, I took a pleasure oddly sweet in the prospect of

urging my suit under such circumstances. Chatellerault had given

me a free hand. I was to go about the wooing of Mademoiselle de

Lavedan as I chose. But he had cast it at me in defiance that not

with all my magnificence, not with all my retinue and all my state

to dazzle her, should I succeed in melting the coldest heart in

France.

 

And now, behold! I had cast from me all these outward

embellishments; I came without pomp, denuded of every emblem of

wealth, of every sign of power; as a poor fugitive gentleman, I

came, hunted, proscribed, and penniless - for Lesperon’s estate

would assuredly suffer sequestration. To win her thus would, by

my faith, be an exploit I might take pride in, a worthy achievement

to encompass.

 

And so I left things as they were, and since I offered no denial

to the identity that was thrust upon me, as Lesperon I continued to

be known to the Vicomte and to his family.

 

Presently he called the old man to my bedside and I heard them

talking of my condition.

 

“You think, then, Anatole,” he said in the end, “that in three or

four days Monsieur de Lesperon may be able to rise?”

 

“I am assured of it,” replied the old servant.

 

Whereupon, turning to me, “Be therefore of good courage, monsieur,”

said Lavedan, “for your hurt is none so grievous after all.”

 

I was muttering my thanks and my assurances that I was in excellent

spirits, when we were suddenly disturbed by a rumbling noise as of

distant thunder.

 

“Mort Dieu!” swore the Vicomte, a look of alarm coming into his

face. With a bent head, he stood in a listening attitude.

 

“What is it?” I inquired.

 

“Horsemen - on the drawbridge,” he answered shortly. “A troop, by

the sound.”

 

And then, in confirmation of these words, followed a stamping and

rattle of hoofs on the flags of the courtyard below. The old servant

stood wringing his hands in helpless terror, and wailing, “Monsieur,

monsieur!”

 

But the Vicomte crossed rapidly to the window and looked out. Then

he laughed with intense relief; and in a wondering voice “They are

not troopers,” he announced. “They have more the air of a company

of servants in private livery; and there is a carriage - pardieu,

two carriages!”

 

At once the memory of Rodenard and my followers occurred to me, and

I thanked Heaven that I was abed where he might not see me, and that

thus he would probably be sent forth empty-handed with the news that

his master was neither arrived nor expected.

 

But in that surmise I went too fast. Ganymede was of a tenacious

mettle, and of this he now afforded proof. Upon learning that

naught was known of the Marquis de Bardelys at Lavedan, my faithful

henchman announced his intention to remain there and await me, since

that was, he assured the Vicomte, my destination.

 

“My first impulse,” said Lavedan, when later he came to tell me of

it, “was incontinently to order his departure. But upon considering

the matter and remembering how high in power and in the King’s

favour stands that monstrous libertine Bardelys, I deemed it wiser

to afford shelter to this outrageous retinue. His steward - a

flabby, insolent creature - says that Bardelys left them last night

near Mirepoix, to ride hither, bidding them follow to-day. Curious

that we should have no news of him! That he should have fallen

into the Garonne and drowned himself were too great a good fortune

to be hoped for.”

 

The bitterness with which he spoke of me afforded me ample cause

for congratulation that I had resolved to accept the role of Lesperon.

Yet, remembering that my father and he had been good friends, his

manner left me nonplussed. What cause could he have for this

animosity to the son? Could it be merely my position at Court that

made me seem in his rebel eyes a natural enemy?

 

“You are acquainted with this Bardelys?” I inquired, by way of

drawing him.

 

“I knew his father,” he answered gruffly. “An honest, upright

gentleman.”

 

“And the son,” I inquired timidly, “has he none of these virtues?”

 

“I know not what virtues he may have; his vices are known to all

the world. He is a libertine, a gambler, a rake, a spendthrift.

They say he is one of the King’s favourites, and that his monstrous

extravagances have earned for him the title of ‘Magnificent’.”

He uttered a short laugh. “A fit servant for such a master as

Louis the Just!”

 

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said I, warming in my own defence, “I swear

you do him injustice. He is extravagant, but then he is rich; he