Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) đź“–
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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would seem, was well informed; he had drawn all knowledge of the
state of things from Castelroux’s messenger, and later - I know not
from whom - at Toulouse, since his arrival.
He regaled the company, therefore, with a recital of our finding
the dying Lesperon, and of how I had gone off alone, and evidently
assumed the name and role of that proscribed rebel, and thus
conducted my wooing under sympathy inspiring circumstances at
Lavedan. Then came, he announced, the very cream of the jest, when
I was arrested as Lesperon and brought to Toulouse and to trial in
Lesperon’s stead; he told them how I had been sentenced to death
in the other man’s place, and he assured them that I would certainly
have been beheaded upon the morrow but that news had been borne to
him - Rodenard - of my plight, and he was come to deliver me.
My first impulse upon hearing him tell of the wager had been to
stride into the room and silence him by my coming. That I did not
obey that impulse was something that presently I was very bitterly
to regret. How it came that I did not I scarcely know. I was
tempted, perhaps, to see how far this henchman whom for years I had
trusted was unworthy of that trust. And so, there in the porch, I
stayed until he had ended by telling the company that he was on his
way to inform the King - who by great good chance was that day
arrived in Toulouse - of the mistake that had been made, and thus
obtain my immediate enlargement and earn my undying gratitude.
Again I was on the point of entering to administer a very stern
reproof to that talkative rogue, when of a sudden there was a
commotion within. I caught a scraping of chairs, a dropping of
voices, and then suddenly I found myself confronted by Roxalanne de
Lavedan herself, issuing with a page and a woman in attendance.
For just a second her eyes rested on me, and the light coming through
the doorway at her back boldly revealed my countenance. And a very
startled countenance it must have been, for in that fraction of time
I knew that she had heard all that Rodenard had been relating. Under
that instant’s glance of her eyes I felt myself turn pale; a shiver
ran through me, and the sweat started cold upon my brow. Then her
gaze passed from me, and looked beyond into the street, as though
she had not known me; whether in her turn she paled or reddened I
cannot say, for the light was too uncertain. Next followed what
seemed to me an interminable pause, although, indeed, it can have
been no more than a matter of seconds - aye, and of but few. Then,
her gown drawn well aside, she passed me in that same irrecognizing
way, whilst I, abashed, shrank back into the shadows of the porch,
burning with shame and rage and humiliation.
From under her brows her woman glanced at me inquisitively; her
liveried page, his nose in the air, eyed me so pertly that I was
hard put to it not to hasten with my foot his descent of the steps.
At last they were gone, and from the outside the shrill voice of
her page was wafted to me. He was calling to the ostler for her
carriage. Standing, in my deep mortification, where she had passed
me, I conjectured from that demand that she was journeying to Lavedan.
She knew now how she had been cheated on every hand, first by me
and later, that very afternoon, by Chatellerault, and her resolve to
quit Toulouse could but signify that she was done with me for good.
That it had surprised her to find me at large already, I fancied I
had seen in her momentary glance, but her pride had been quick to
conquer and stifle all signs of that surprise.
I remained where she had passed me until her coach had rumbled away
into the night, and during the moments that elapsed I had stood
arguing with myself and resolving upon my course of action. But
despair was fastening upon me.
I had come to the Hotel de l’Epee, exulting, joyous, and confident
of victory. I had come to confess everything to her, and by virtue
of what I had done that confession was rendered easy. I could have
said to her: “The woman whom I wagered to win was not you, Roxalanne,
but a certain Mademoiselle de Lavedan. Your love I have won, but
that you may foster no doubts of my intentions, I have paid my wager
and acknowledge defeat. I have made over to Chatellerault and to
his heirs for all time my estates of Bardelys.”
Oh, I had rehearsed it in my mind, and I was confident - I knew -
that I should win her. And now - the disclosure of that shameful
traffic coming from other lips than mine had ruined everything by
forestalling my avowal.
Rodenard should pay for it - by God, he should! Once again did I
become a prey to the passion of anger which I have ever held to
be unworthy in a gentleman, but to which it would seem that I was
growing accustomed to give way. The ostler was mounting the steps
at the moment. He carried in his hand a stout horsewhip with a
long knotted thong. Hastily muttering a “By your leave,” I snatched
it from him and sprang into the room.
My intendant was still talking of me. The room was crowded, for
Rodenard alone had brought with him my twenty followers. One of
these looked up as I brushed past him, and uttered a cry of surprise
upon recognizing me. But Rodenard talked on, engrossed in his theme
to the exclusion of all else.
“Monsieur le Marquis,” he was saying, “is a gentleman whom it is,
indeed, an honour to serve—”
A scream burst from him with the last word, for the lash of my whip
had burnt a wheal upon his well-fed sides.
“It is an honour that shall be yours no more, you dog!” I cried.
He leapt high into the air as my whip cut him again. He swung round,
his face twisted with pain, his flabby cheeks white with fear, and
his eyes wild with anger, for as yet the full force of the situation
had not been borne in upon him. Then, seeing me there, and catching
something of the awful passion that must have been stamped upon my
face, he dropped on his knees and cried out something that I did
not understand for I was past understanding much just then.
The lash whistled through the air again and caught him about the
shoulders. He writhed and roared in his anguish of both flesh and
spirit. But I was pitiless. He had ruined my life for me with his
talking, and, as God lived, he should pay the only price that it
lay in his power to pay - the price of physical suffering. Again
and again my whip hissed about his head and cut into his soft white
flesh, whilst roaring for mercy he moved and rocked on his knees
before me. Instinctively he approached me to hamper my movements,
whilst I moved back to give my lash the better play. He held out
his arms and joined his fat hands in supplication, but the lash
caught them in its sinuous tormenting embrace, and started a red
wheal across their whiteness. He tucked them into his armpits with
a scream, and fell prone upon the ground.
Then I remember that some of my men essayed to restrain me, which
to my passion was as the wind to a blaze. I cracked my whip about
their heads, commanding them to keep their distance lest they were
minded to share his castigation. And so fearful an air must I
have worn, that, daunted, they hung back and watched their leader’s
punishment in silence.
When I think of it now, I take no little shame at the memory of how
I beat him. It is, indeed, with deep reluctance and yet deeper
shame that I have brought myself to write of it. If I offend you
with this account of that horsewhipping, let necessity be my apology;
for the horsewhipping itself I have, unfortunately, no apology, save
the blind fury that obsessed me - which is no apology at all.
Upon the morrow I repented me already with much bitterness. But in
that hour I knew no reason. I was mad, and of my madness was born
this harsh brutality.
“You would talk of me and my affairs in a tavern, you hound!” I
cried, out of breath both by virtue of my passion and my exertions.
“Let the memory of this act as a curb upon your poisonous tongue in
future.”
“Monseigneur!” he screamed. “Misericorde, monseigneur!”
“Aye, you shall have mercy - just so much mercy as you deserve.
Have I trusted you all these years, and did my father trust you
before me, for this? Have you grown sleek and fat and smug in my
service that you should requite me thus? Sangdieu, Rodenard! My
father had hanged you for the half of the talking that you have
done this night. You dog! You miserable knave!”
“Monseigneur,” he shrieked again, “forgive! For your sainted
mother’s sake, forgive! Monseigneur, I did not know—”
“But you are learning, cur; you are learning by the pain of your
fat carcase; is it not so, carrion?”
He sank down, his strength exhausted, a limp, moaning, bleeding
mass of flesh, into which my whip still cut relentlessly.
I have a picture m my mind of that ill-lighted room, of the startled
faces on which the flickering glimmer of the candles shed odd
shadows; of the humming and cracking of my whip; of my own voice
raised in oaths and epithets of contempt; of Rodenard’s screams; of
the cries raised here and there in remonstrance or in entreaty, and
of some more bold that called shame upon me. Then others took up
that cry of “Shame!” so that at last I paused and stood there drawn
up to my full height, as if in challenge. Towering above the heads
of any in that room, I held my whip menacingly. I was unused to
criticism, and their expressions of condemnation roused me.
“Who questions my right?” I demanded arrogantly, whereupon they one
and all fell silent. “If any here be bold enough to step out, he
shall have my answer.” Then, as none responded, I signified my
contempt for them by a laugh.
“Monseigneur!” wailed Rodenard at my feet, his voice growing feeble.
By way of answer, I gave him a final cut, then I flung the whip -
which had grown ragged in the fray - back to the ostler from whom I
had borrowed it.
“Let that suffice you, Rodenard,” I said, touching him with my foot.
“See that I never set eyes upon you again, if you cherish your
miserable life!”
“Not that, monseigneur.” groaned the wretch. “Oh, not that! You
have punished me; you have whipped me until I cannot stand; forgive
me, monseigneur, forgive me now!”
“I have forgiven you, but I never wish to see you again, lest I
should forget that I have forgiven you. Take him away, some of you,”
I bade my men, and in swift, silent obedience two of them stepped
forward and bore the groaning, sobbing fellow from the room. When
that was done “Host,” I commanded, “prepare me a room. Attend
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