A Prince of Good Fellows by Robert Barr (best thriller novels to read txt) 📖

air, forthwith fell to, and did ample justice to the providing of his unknown host. The choicest vintages of France did something to dispel that depression which had settled down upon him, and the outside glow of the great fire supplemented the inward ardour of good wine.

The king drew up his cushioned chair to the blaze, and while his attendants speedily cleared the board, a delicious drowsiness stole over him. He was partially aroused from this by the entrance of his poetical friend and confidant, Sir David Lyndsay.

"Your majesty," said the rhymster, "the constable of these towers craves permission to pay his respects to you, extending a welcome on behalf of his master, the King of France."

"Bring him in, Davie," cried James; "for in truth he has already extended the most cordial of welcomes, and I desire to thank him for my reception."

Shortly after Sir David Lyndsay ushered into the room a young man of about the same age as the king, dressed in that superb and picturesque costume which denoted a high noble of France, and which added the lustre of fine raiment to the distinguished court of Francis the First. The king greeted his visitor with that affability, which invariably drew even the most surly toward him, without relaxing the dignity which is supposed to be the heritage of a monarch.

"I am delighted to think," said the newcomer, "that the King of Scotland has honoured my house by making it his first halting-place in that realm which has ever been the friend of his country."

"Sir," replied James, "the obligation rests entirely upon me. After a stormy voyage and an inclement land journey, the hospitality of your board is one of the most grateful encounters I have ever met with. I plead an ignorance of geography which is deplorable; and cannot in the least guess where I am, beyond the fact that the boundaries of France encompass me."

"I shall not pretend," said the young man, "that my house is unworthy even of the distinguished guest which it now holds. Your majesty stands within historic walls, for in an adjoining apartment was born William, the founder of a great race of English kings. Scotchmen have defended this castle, and Scotchmen have assaulted it, so its very stones are linked with the fortunes of your country. Brave Henry the Fifth of England captured it, and France took it from his successor. My own family, like the Scotch, have both stood its guard and have been the foremost through a breach to sack it. I am but now employed in repairing the ravages of recent turmoil."

Here the King interrupted him, as if to mend the reputation of ignorance he had bestowed upon himself.

"I take it, then, that I speak to one of the renowned name of Talbot, and that this fortress is no other than the Castle of Falaise?" and the king impetuously extended his hand to him. "We both come of a stormy line, Talbot. Indeed we are even more intimately associated than you have hinted, for one of your name had the temerity to invade Scotland itself in the interests of Edward Baliol--yes, by the Rood, and successfully too."

"Ah, your majesty, it does not become the pride of our house to refer to Richard Talbot, for three years later the Scots took him prisoner, and he retired defeated from your country."

"Indeed," replied the king gaily, "if my memory serves me truly, we valued your valiant ancestor so highly that we made the King of England pay two thousand marks for him. We Scots are a frugal people; we weigh many of the blessings of life against good hard coin, and by Saint Andrew of Scotland, Talbot, I hold myself to-day no better than the rest, for, speaking as young man to young man, I think it unworthy of either king or peasant to take a woman to his bosom for aught save love of her."

"In that I cordially agree with your majesty," said Talbot, with a fervour that made the king glance at him with even more of sympathy than he had already exhibited. A wave of emotion seemed to overwhelm the sensitive James, and submerge for the moment all discretion; he appeared to forget that he spoke to a stranger and one foreign to him, yet James rarely mistook his man, and in this case his intuition was not at fault. To lay bare the secrets of his heart to one unknown to him shortly before, was an experiment of risk; but, as he had said, he spoke as young man to young man, and healthy youth is rarely cynical, no matter to what country it belongs. The heart knows nothing of nationality, and a true man is a true man wherever he hails from.

James sprang to his feet and paced the long room in an excess of excitement, a cloud on his brow; hands clenching and unclenching as he walked. Equally with the lowest in his realm he felt the need of a compassionate confidant. At last the words poured forth from him in an ecstasy of confession.

"Talbot," he cried, "I am on a journey that shames my very manhood. I have lived my life as others of my age, and whatever of contrition I may feel, that rests between my Maker and myself. I am as He formed me, and if I was made imperfect I may be to blame that I strove so little to overcome my deficiency, but, by God, I say it here, I never bought another nor sold myself. Now, on the contrary, I go to the loud marketplace; now I approach a woman I have never seen, and who has never seen me, to pledge our lives together, the consideration for this union set down on parchment, and a stipulated sum paid over in lands and gold."

The king stopped suddenly in his perambulation, raised his hands and said impressively,--

"I tell you, friend and host, I am no better than my fellows and worse than many of them, but when the priest mutters the words that bind, I say the man should have no thought in his mind, but of the woman who stands beside him; and she no thought in hers but of the man in whose hand she places her own."

"Then why go on with this quest?" cried young Talbot with an impetuosity equal to that of his guest.

"Why go on; how can I stop? The fate of kingdoms depends on my action. My honour is at stake. My pledged word is given. How can I withdraw?"

"Your majesty need not withdraw. My master, Francis, is the very prince of lovers, and every word you have uttered will awake an echo in his own heart, although he is our senior by twenty years. If I may venture to offer humbly such advice as occurs to me, you should tell him that you have come to France not to be chosen for, but to choose. France is the flower garden of the human race; here bloom the fairest lilies of womanhood, fit to grace the proudest throne in Christendom. Choice is the prerogative of kings."

"Indeed, Talbot, it is not," said the king dolefully.

"It should be so, and can be so, where a monarch boldly demands the right exercised unquestioned by the meanest hind. Whom shall you offend by stoutly claiming your right? Not France, for you will wed one of her daughters; not the king, for he is anxious to bestow upon you the lady you may prefer. Whom then? Merely the Duke of Vendome, whose vaulting ambition it is to place a crown upon the head of his daughter, though its weight may crush her."

The king looked fixedly at the perturbed young man, and a faint smile chased away the sternness of his countenance.

"I have never known an instance," he said slowly, "where the burden of a crown was urged as an objection even by the most romantic of women."

"It would be so urged by Mary of Vendome, were she allowed to give utterance to her wishes."

"You know her then?"

"I am proud to claim her as a friend, and to assert she is the very pearl of France."

"Ha, you interest me. You hint, then, that I come a bootless wooer? That is turning the tables indeed, and now you rouse an emulation which heretofore was absent in me. You think I cannot win and wear this jewel of the realm?"

"That you may wear it there is no doubt; that you may win it is another matter. Mary will place her listless hand in yours, knowing thus she pleases the king and her father, but it is rumoured her affections are fixed upon another."

"Sir, you stir me up to competition. Now we enter the lists. You bring the keen incentive of rivalry into play."

"Such, your majesty, was far from my intention. I spoke as a friend of the lady. She has no more choice in this bargain than you deplored the lack of a moment since."

The former gloom again overspread the king's face.

"There is the devil of it," he cried impatiently. "If I could meet her on even terms, plain man and woman, then if I loved her I would win her, were all the nobles of France in the scales against me. But I come to her chained; a jingling captive, and she approaches me alike in thrall. It is a cursed fate, and I chafe at the clanking links, though they hold me nevertheless. And all my life I can never be sure of her; the chiming metal ever between us. I come in pomp and display, as public as the street I walk on, and the union is as brazen as a slave market, despite cathedral bells and archbishop's blessing. Ah, well, there is nothing gained by ranting. Do you ride to Loches with me?"

"I follow your majesty a day behind, but hope to overtake you before you are well past Tours."

"I am glad of it. Good-night. I see you stand my friend, and before this comes to a climax we may have need to consult together. Good-night; good-night!"

Next morning early the itinerants were on horseback again, facing southward. The day was wild and stormy, and so was the next that followed it; but after leaving Tours they seemed to have entered an enchanted land, for the clouds were dispersed and the warm sun came forth, endowing the travellers with a genial climate like late springtime in Scotland. As they approached Loches even the king was amazed by the striking sight of the castle, a place formidable in its strength, and in extent resembling a small city.

The gay and gallant Francis received his fellow monarch with a cordiality that left no doubt of its genuine character. The French king had the geniality to meet James in the courtyard itself; he embraced him at the very gates as soon as James had dismounted from his horse. Notwithstanding his twenty years of seniority Francis seemed as young as the Scottish king.

"By Saint Denis, James," he cried, "you are a visitor of good omen, for you have brought fine weather with you and the breath of spring. All this winter we have endured the climate of Hades itself, without its warmth."

The two rulers stood together in the courtyard, entirely alone, for no man dare frequent their immediate neighbourhood; but in a circle some distance removed from their centre, the Scotch and the French fraternised together, a preeminent assemblage numbering a thousand or more; and from the balconies