Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) 📖
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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twenty and some with thirty wounds - and little like to live.
Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in Languedoc that day, for
they believed that it was against the Cardinal, who sought to strip
them of so many privileges, that Gaston d’Orleans had set up his
standard.
That those rumours of battle and defeat were true we had ample
proof some few hours later, when a company of dragoons in buff and
steel rode into the courtyard of the Auberge de Navarre, headed by
a young spark of an officer, who confirmed the rumour and set the
number of Montmorency’s wounds at seventeen. He was lying, the
officer told us, at Castelnaudary, and his duchess was hastening
to him from Beziers. Poor woman! She was destined to nurse him
back to life and vigour only that he might take his trial at
Toulouse and pay with his head the price of his rebellion.
Ganymede who, through the luxurious habits of his more recent years
had - for all his fine swagger - developed a marked distaste for
warfare and excitement, besought me to take thought for my safety
and to lie quietly at Montauban until the province should be more
settled.
“The place is a hotbed of rebellion,” he urged. “If these Chouans
but learn that we are from Paris and of the King’s party, we shall
have our throats slit, as I live. There is not a peasant in all
this countryside indeed, scarce a man of any sort but is a red-hot
Orleanist, anti-Cardinalist, and friend of the Devil. Bethink you,
monseigneur, to push on at the present is to court murder.”
“Why, then, we will court murder,” said I coldly. “Give the word
to saddle.”
I asked him at the moment of setting out did he know the road to
Lavedan, to which the lying poltroon made answer that he did. In
his youth he may have known it, and the countryside may have
undergone since then such changes as bewildered him. Or it may be
that fear dulled his wits, and lured him into taking what may have
seemed the safer rather than the likelier road. But this I know,
that as night was falling my carriage halted with a lurch, and as
I put forth my head I was confronted by my trembling intendant, his
great fat face gleaming whitely in the gloom above the lawn collar
on his doublet.
“Why do we halt, Ganymede?” quoth I.
“Monseigneur,” he faltered, his trembling increasing as he spoke,
and his eyes meeting mine in a look of pitiful contrition, “I fear
we are lost.”
“Lost?” I echoed. “Of what do you talk? Am I to sleep in the coach?”
“Alas, monseigneur, I have done my best—”
“Why, then, God keep us from your worst,” I snapped. “Open me this
door.”
I stepped down and looked about me, and, by my faith, a more desolate
spot to lose us in my henchman could not have contrived had he been
at pains to do so. A bleak, barren landscape - such as I could
hardly have credited was to be found in all that fair province -
unfolded itself, looking now more bleak, perhaps, by virtue of the
dim evening mist that hovered over it. Yonder, to the right, a dull
russet patch of sky marked the west, and then in front of us I made
out the hazy outline of the Pyrenees. At sight of them, I swung
round and gripped my henchman by the shoulder.
“A fine trusty servant thou!” I cried. “Boaster! Had you told us
that age and fat living had so stunted your wits as to have
extinguished memory, I had taken a guide at Montauban to show us
the way. Yet, here, with the sun and the Pyrenees to guide you,
even had you no other knowledge, you lose yourself!”
“Monseigneur,” he whimpered, “I was choosing my way by the sun and
the mountains, and it was thus that I came to this impasse. For
you may see, yourself, that the road ends here abruptly.”
“Ganymede,” said I slowly, “when we return to Paris - if you do
not die of fright ‘twixt this and then - I’ll find a place for you
in the kitchens. God send you may make a better scullion than a
follower!” Then, vaulting over the wall, “Attend me, some
half-dozen of you,” I commanded, and stepped out briskly towards
the barn.
As the weather-beaten old door creaked upon its rusty hinges, we
were greeted by a groan from within, and with it the soft rustle
of straw that is being moved. Surprised, I halted, and waited
whilst one of my men kindled a light in the lanthorn that he
carried.
By its rays we beheld a pitiable sight in a corner of that building.
A man, quite young and of a tall and vigorous frame, lay stretched
upon the straw. He was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots,
and from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast hung now upon
him, it would seem as if he had been making shift to divest himself
of his armour, but had lacked the strength to complete the task.
Beside him lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a
richly broidered baldrick. All about him the straw was clotted with
brown, viscous patches of blood. The doublet which had been of
sky-blue velvet was all sodden and stained, and inspection showed
us that he had been wounded in the right side, between the straps
of his breastplate.
As we stood about him now, a silent, pitying group, appearing
fantastic, perhaps, by the dim light of that single lanthorn, he
attempted to raise his head, and then with a groan he dropped it
back upon the straw that pillowed it. From out of a face white, as
in death, and drawn with haggard lines of pain, a pair of great
lustrous blue eyes were turned upon us, abject and pitiful as the
gaze of a dumb beast that is stricken mortally.
It needed no acuteness to apprehend that we had before us one of
yesterday’s defeated warriors; one who had spent his last strength
in creeping hither to get his dying done in peace. Lest our
presence should add fear to the agony already upon him, I knelt
beside him in the blood-smeared straw, and, raising his head, I
pillowed it upon my arm.
“Have no fear,” said I reassuringly. “We are friends. Do you
understand?”
The faint smile that played for a second on his lips and lighted
his countenance would have told me that he understood, even had I
not caught his words, faint as a sigh “Merci, monsieur.” He
nestled his head into the crook of my arm. “Water - for the love of
God!” he gasped, to add in a groan, “Je me meurs, monsieur.”
Assisted by a couple of knaves, Ganymede went about attending to
the rebel at once. Handling him as carefully as might be, to avoid
giving him unnecessary pain they removed his back-and-breast, which
was flung with a clatter into one of the corners of the barn. Then,
whilst one of them gently drew off his boots, Rodenard, with the
lanthorn close beside him, cut away the fellow’s doublet, and laid
bare the oozing sword-wound that gaped in his mangled side. He
whispered an order to Gilles, who went swiftly off to the coach in
quest of something that he had asked for; then he sat on his heels
and waited, his hand upon the man’s pulse, his eyes on his face.
I stooped until my lips were on a level with my intendant’s ear.
“How is it with him?” I inquired.
“Dying,” whispered Rodenard in answer. “He has lost too much blood,
and he is probably bleeding inwardly as well. There is no hope of
his life, but he may linger thus some little while, sinking gradually,
and we can at least mitigate the suffering of his last moments.”
When presently the men returned with the things that Ganymede had
asked for, he mixed some pungent liquid with water, and, whilst a
servant held the bowl, he carefully sponged the rebel’s wound. This
and a cordial that he had given him to drink seemed to revive him
and to afford him ease. His breathing was no longer marked by any
rasping sound, and his eyes seemed to burn more intelligently.
“I am dying - is it not so?” he asked, and Ganymede bowed his head
in silence. The poor fellow sighed. “Raise me,” he begged, and
when this service had been done him, his eyes wandered round until
they found me. Then “Monsieur,” he said, “will you do me a last
favour?”
“Assuredly, my poor friend,” I answered, going down on my knees
beside him.
“You - you were not for the Duke?” he inquired, eyeing me more
keenly.
“No, monsieur. But do not let that disturb you; I have no interest
in this rising and I have taken no side. I am from Paris, on a
journey of - of pleasure. My name is Bardelys - Marcel de Bardelys.”
“Bardelys the Magnificent?” he questioned, and I could not repress
a smile.
“I am that overrated man.”
“But then you are for the King!” And a note of disappointment crept
into his voice. Before I could make him any answer, he had resumed.
“No matter; Marcel de Bardelys is a gentleman, and party signifies
little when a man is dying. I am Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in
Gascony,” he pursued. “Will you send word to my sister afterwards?”
I bowed my head without speaking.
“She is the only relative I have, monsieur. But - and his tone grew
wistful - “there is one other to whom I would have you bear a
message.” He raised his hand by a painful effort to the level of
his breast. Strength failed him, and he sank back. “I cannot,
monsieur,” he said in a tone of pathetic apology. “See; there is
a chain about my neck with a locket. Take it from me. Take it now,
monsieur. There are some papers also, monsieur. Take all. I want
to see them safely in your keeping.”
I did his bidding, and from the breast of his doublet I drew some
loose letters and a locket which held the miniature of a woman’s
face.
“I want you to deliver all to her, monsieur.”
“It shall be done,” I answered, deeply moved.
“Hold it - hold it up,” he begged, his voice weakening. “Let me
behold the face.”
Long his eyes rested on the likeness I held before him. At last,
as one in a dream—
“Well-beloved,” he sighed. “Bien aimee!” And down his grey,
haggard cheeks the tears came slowly. “Forgive this weakness,
monsieur,” he whispered brokenly. “We were to have been wed in
a month, had I lived.” He ended with a sob, and when next he
spoke it was more labouredly, as though that sob had robbed him of
the half of what vitality remained. “Tell her, monsieur, that my
dying thoughts were of her. Tell - tell her - I—”
“Her name?” I cried, fearing he would sink before I learned it.
“Tell me her name.”
He looked at me with eyes that were growing glassy and vacant. Then
he seemed to brace himself and to rally for a second.
“Her name?” he mused, in a far-off manner. “She is - Ma-de-moiselle
de -”
His head rolled on the suddenly relaxed neck. He collapsed into
Rodenard’s arms.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
Rodenard nodded in silence.
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