Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) đź“–
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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imminence of the peril had been such that, as we mutually recovered,
I found a cold sweat bathing me.
After that, I resolved to abandon the attempt to disarm him by
pressure, and I turned my attention to drawing him into a position
that might lend itself to seizure. But even as I was making up my
mind to this - we were engaged in sixte at the time - I saw a sudden
chance. His point was held low while he watched me; so low that his
arm was uncovered and my point was in line with it. To see the
opening, to estimate it, and to take my resolve was all the work of
a fraction of a second. The next instant I had straightened my elbow,
my blade shot out in a lightning stroke and transfixed his sword-arm.
There was a yell of pain, followed by a deep growl of fury, as,
wounded but not vanquished, the enraged Count caught his falling
sword in his left hand, and whilst my own blade was held tight in
the bone of his right arm, he sought to run me through. I leapt
quickly aside, and then, before he could renew the attempt, my
friends had fallen upon him and wrenched his sword from his hand
and mine from his arm.
It would ill have become me to taunt a man in his sorry condition,
else might I now have explained to him what I had meant when I had
promised to leave him for the headsman even though I did consent to
fight him.
Mironsac, Castelroux, and La Fosse stood babbling around me, but I
paid no heed either to Castelroux’s patois or to La Fosse’s
misquotations of classic authors. The combat had been protracted,
and the methods I had pursued had been of a very exhausting nature.
I leaned now against the portecochere, and mopped myself vigorously.
Then Saint-Eustache, who was engaged in binding up his principal’s
arm, called to La Fosse.
I followed my second with my eyes as he went across to Chatellerault.
The Count stood white, his lips compressed, no doubt from the pain
his arm was causing him. Then his voice floated across to me as he
addressed La Fosse.
“You will do me the favour, monsieur, to inform your friend that
this was no first blood combat, but one a outrance. I fence as well
with my left arm as with my right, and if Monsieur de Bardelys will
do me the honour to engage again, I shall esteem it.”
La Fosse bowed and came over with the message that already we had
heard.
“I fought,” said I in answer, “in a spirit very different from that
by which Monsieur de Chatellerault appears to have been actuated.
He made it incumbent upon me to afford proof of my courage. That
proof I have afforded; I decline to do more. Moreover, as Monsieur
de Chatellerault himself must perceive, the light is failing us, and
in a few minutes it will be too dark for swordplay.”
“In a few minutes there will be need for none, monsieur,” shouted
Chatellerault, to save time. He was boastful to the end.
“Here, monsieur, in any case, come those who will resolve the
question,” I answered, pointing to the door of the inn.
As I spoke, the landlord stepped into the yard, followed by an
officer and a half-dozen soldiers. These were no ordinary keepers of
the peace, but musketeers of the guard, and at sight of them I knew
that their business was not to interrupt a duel, but to arrest my
erstwhile opponent upon a much graver charge.
The officer advanced straight to Chatellerault.
“In the King’s name, Monsieur le Comte,” said he. “I demand your
sword.”
It may be that at bottom I was still a man of soft heart, unfeeling
cynic though they accounted me; for upon remarking the misery and
gloom that spread upon Chatellerault’s face I was sorry for him,
notwithstanding the much that he had schemed against me. Of what
his fate would be he could have no shadow of doubt. He knew - none
better - how truly the King loved me, and how he would punish such
an attempt as had been made upon my life, to say nothing of the
prostitution of justice of which he had been guilty, and for which
alone he had earned the penalty of death.
He stood a moment with bent head, the pain of his arm possibly
forgotten in the agony of his spirit. Then, straightening himself
suddenly, with a proud, half scornful air, he looked the officer
straight between the eyes.
“You desire my sword, monsieur?” he inquired.
The musketeer bowed respectfully.
“Saint-Eustache, will you do me the favour to give it to me?”
And while the Chevalier picked up the rapier from the ground where
it had been flung, that man waited with an outward calm for which
at the moment I admired him, as we must ever admire a tranquil
bearing in one smitten by a great adversity. And than this I can
conceive few greater. He had played for much, and he had lost
everything. Ignominy, degradation, and the block were all that
impended for him in this world, and they were very imminent.
He took the sword from the Chevalier. He held it for a second by
the hilt, like one in thought, like one who is resolving upon
something, whilst the musketeer awaited his good pleasure with that
deference which all gentle minds must accord to the unfortunate.
Still holding his rapier, he raised his eyes for a second and let
them rest on me with a grim malevolence. Then he uttered a short
laugh, and, shrugging his shoulders, he transferred his grip to the
blade, as if about to offer the hilt to the officer. Holding it so,
halfway betwixt point and quillons, he stepped suddenly back, and
before any there could put forth a hand to stay him, he had set the
pummel on the ground and the point at his breast, and so dropped
upon it and impaled himself.
A cry went up from every throat, and we sprang towards him. He
rolled over on his side, and with a grin of exquisite pain, yet in
words of unconquerable derision “You may have my sword now, Monsieur
l’Officier,” he said, and sank back, swooning.
With an oath, the musketeer stepped forward. He obeyed Chatellerault
to the letter, by kneeling beside him and carefully withdrawing the
sword. Then he ordered a couple of his men to take up the body.
“Is he dead?” asked some one; and some one else replied, “Not yet,
but he soon will be.”
Two of the musketeers bore him into the inn and laid him on the floor
of the very room in which, an hour or so ago, he had driven a bargain
with Roxalanne. A cloak rolled into a pillow was thrust under his
head, and there we left him in charge of his captors, the landlord,
Saint-Eustache, and La Fosse the latter inspired, I doubt not, by
that morbidity which is so often a feature of the poetic mind, and
which impelled him now to witness the death-agony of my Lord of
Chatellerault.
Myself, having resumed my garments, I disposed myself to repair at
once to the Hotel de l’Epee, there to seek Roxalanne, that I might
set her fears and sorrows at rest, and that I might at last make my
confession.
As we stepped out into the street, where the dusk was now thickening,
I turned to Castelroux to inquire how Saint-Eustache came into
Chatellerault’s company.
“He is of the family of the Iscariot, I should opine,” answered the
Gascon. “As soon as he had news that Chatellerault was come to
Languedoc as the King’s Commissioner, he repaired to him to offer
his services in the work of bringing rebels to justice. He urged
that his thorough acquaintance with the province should render him
of value to the King, as also that he had had particular opportunities
of becoming acquainted with many treasonable dealings on the part
of men whom the State was far from suspecting.”
“Mort Dieu!” I cried, “I had suspected something of such a nature.
You do well to call him of the family of the Iscariot. He is more
so than you imagine: I have knowledge of this - ample knowledge. He
was until lately a rebel himself, and himself a follower of Gaston
d’Orleans - though of a lukewarm quality. What reasons have driven
him to such work, do you know?”
“The same reason that impelled his forefather, Judas of old. The
desire to enrich himself. For every hitherto unsuspected rebel that
shall be brought to justice and whose treason shall be proven by his
agency, he claims the half of that rebel’s confiscated estates.”
“Diable!” I exclaimed. “And does the Keeper of the Seals sanction
this?”
“Sanction it? Saint-Eustache holds a commission, has a free hand
and a company of horse to follow him in his rebel-hunting.”
“Has he done much so far?” was my next question.
“He has reduced half a dozen noblemen and their families. The wealth
he must thereby have amassed should be very considerable, indeed.”
“Tomorrow, Castelroux, I will see the King in connection with this
pretty gentleman, and not only shall we find him a dungeon deep and
dank, but we shall see that he disgorges his blood-money.”
“If you can prove his treason you will be doing blessed work,”
returned Castelroux. “Until tomorrow, then, for here is the Hotel
de l’Epee.”
From the broad doorway of an imposing building a warm glow of light
issued out and spread itself fanwise across the ill-paved street.
In this - like bats about a lamp - flitted the black figures of
gaping urchins and other stragglers, and into this I now passed,
having taken leave of my companions.
I mounted the steps and I was about to cross the threshold, when
suddenly above a burst of laughter that greeted my ears I caught the
sound of a singularly familiar voice. This seemed raised at present
to address such company as might be within. One moment of doubt had
I - for it was a month since last I had heard those soft, unctuous
accents. Then I was assured that the voice I heard was, indeed, the
voice of my steward Ganymede. Castelroux’s messenger had found him
at last, it seemed, and had brought him to Toulouse.
I was moved to spring into the room and greet that old retainer for
whom, despite the gross and sensuous ways that with advancing years
were claiming him more and more, I had a deep attachment. But even
as I was on the point of entering, not only his voice, but the very
words that he was uttering floated out to my ears, and they were of
a quality that held me there to play the hidden listener for the
second time in my life in one and the same day.
THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE
Never until that hour, as I stood in the porch of the Hotel de
l’Epee, hearkening to my henchman’s narrative and to the bursts of
laughter which ever and anon it provoked from his numerous
listeners, had I dreamed of the raconteur talents which Rodenard
might boast. Yet was I very far from being appreciative now that
I discovered them, for the story that he told was of how one Marcel
Saint-Pol, Marquis de Bardelys, had laid a wager with the Comte de
Chatellerault that he would woo and win Mademoiselle de Lavedan to
wife within three months.
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