Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords], Complete - Gilbert Parker
"By royal warrant and heritage. And of all of the Jersey Isle, I only may
have dove-totes, which is the everlasting thorn in the side of De
Carteret of St. Ouen's. Now will you let me in, my lord?" he said, all in
a breath.
At a stir behind him the Lord Chamberlain turned, and with a horrified
exclamation hurried away, for the procession from the Queen's apartments
had already entered the presence-chamber: gentlemen, barons, earls,
knights of the garter, in brave attire, with bare heads and sumptuous
calves. The Lord Chamberlain had scarce got to his place when the
Chancellor, bearing the seals in a red silk purse, entered, flanked by
two gorgeous folk with the royal sceptre and the sword of state in a red
scabbard, all flourished with fleur-de-lis. Moving in and out among them
all was the Queen's fool, who jested and shook his bells under the noses
of the highest.
It was an event of which the Seigneur of Rozel told to his dying day:
that he entered the presence-chamber of the Royal Palace of Greenwich at
the same instant as the Queen--"Rozel at one end, Elizabeth at the other,
and all the world at gaze," he was wont to say with loud guffaws. But
what he spoke of afterwards with preposterous ease and pride was neither
pride nor ease at the moment; for the Queen's eyes fell on him as he
shoved past the gentlemen who kept the door. For an instant she stood
still, regarding him intently, then turned quickly to the Lord
Chamberlain in inquiry, and with sharp reproof too in her look. The Lord
Chamberlain fell on his knee and with low uncertain voice explained the
incident.
Elizabeth again cast her eyes towards Lempriere, and the Court, following
her example, scrutinised the Seigneur in varied styles of insolence or
curiosity. Lempriere drew himself up with a slashing attempt at
composure, but ended by flaming from head to foot, his face shining like
a cock's comb, the perspiration standing out like beads upon his
forehead, his eyes gone blind with confusion. That was but for a moment,
however, and then, Elizabeth's look being slowly withdrawn from him, a
curious smile came to her lips, and she said to the Lord Chamberlain:
"Let the gentleman remain."
The Queen's fool tripped forward and tapped the Lord Chamberlain on the
shoulder. "Let the gentleman remain, gossip, and see you that remaining
he goeth not like a fly with his feet in the porridge." With a flippant
step before the Seigneur, he shook his bells at him. "Thou shalt stay,
Nuncio, and staying speak the truth. So doing you shall be as noted as a
comet with three tails. You shall prove that man was made in God's image.
So lift thy head and sneeze--sneezing is the fashion here; but see that
thou sneeze not thy head off as they do in Tartary. 'Tis worth
remembrance."
Rozel's self-importance and pride had returned. The blood came back to
his heart, and he threw out his chest grandly; he even turned to
Buonespoir, whose great figure might be seen beyond the door, and winked
at him. For a moment he had time to note the doings of the Queen and her
courtiers with wide-eyed curiosity. He saw the Earl of Leicester,
exquisite, haughty, gallant, fall upon his knee, and Elizabeth slowly
pull off her glove and with a none too gracious look give him her hand to
kiss, the only favour of the kind granted that day. He saw Cecil, her
Minister, introduce a foreign noble, who presented his letters. He heard
the Queen speak in a half-dozen different languages, to people of various
lands, and he was smitten with amazement.
But as Elizabeth came slowly down the hall, her white silk gown fronted
with great pearls flashing back the light, a marchioness bearing the
train, the crown on her head glittering as she turned from right to left,
her wonderful collar of jewels sparkling on her uncovered bosom, suddenly
the mantle of black, silver-shotted silk upon her shoulders became to
Lempriere's heated senses a judge's robe, and Elizabeth the august judge
of the world. His eyes blinded again, for it was as if she was bearing
down upon him. Certainly she was looking at him now, scarce heeding the
courtiers who fell to their knees on either side as she came on. The red
doublets of the fifty Gentlemen Pensioners--all men of noble families
proud to do this humble yet distinguished service--with battle-axes, on
either side of her, seemed to Lempriere on the instant like an army with
banners threatening him. From the ante-chapel behind him came the cry of
the faithful subjects who, as the gentleman-at-arms fell back from the
doorway, had but just caught a glimpse of her Majesty--"Long live
Elizabeth!"
It seemed to Lempriere that the Gentlemen Pensioners must beat him down
as they passed, yet he stood riveted to the spot; and indeed it was true
that he was almost in the path of her Majesty. He was aware that two
gentlemen touched him on the shoulder and bade him retire; but the Queen
motioned to them to desist. So, with the eyes of the whole court on him
again, and Elizabeth's calm curious gaze fixed, as it were, on his
forehead, he stood still till the flaming Gentlemen Pensioners were
within a few feet of him, and the battle-axes were almost over his head.
The great braggart was no better now than a wisp of grass in the wind,
and it was more than homage that bent him to his knees as the Queen
looked him full in the eyes. There was a moment's absolute silence, and
then she said, with cold condescension:
"By what privilege do you seek our presence?"
"I am Raoul Lempriere, Seigneur of Rozel, your high Majesty," said the
choking voice of the Jerseyman. The Queen raised her eyebrows. "The man
seems French. You come from France?"
Lempriere flushed to his hair--the Queen did not know him, then! "From
Jersey Isle, your sacred Majesty."
"Jersey Isle is dear to us. And what is your warrant here?"
"I am butler to your Majesty, by your gracious Majesty's patent, and I
alone may have dove-cotes in the isle; and I only may have the
perquage-on your Majesty's patent. It is not even held by De Carteret of
St. Ouen's."
The Queen smiled as she had not smiled since she entered the
presence-chamber. "God preserve us," she said--"that I should not have
recognised you! It is, of course, our faithful Lempriere of Rozel."
The blood came back to the Seigneur's heart, but he did not dare look up
yet, and he did not see that Elizabeth was in rare mirth at his words;
and though she had no ken or memory of him, she read his nature and was
mindful to humour him. Beckoning Leicester to her side, she said a few
words in an undertone, to which he replied with a smile more sour than
sweet.
"Rise, Monsieur of Rozel," she said.
The Seigneur stood up, and met her gaze faintly. "And so, proud Seigneur,
you must needs flout e'en our Lord Chamberlain, in the name of our butler
with three dove-cotes and the perquage. In sooth thy office must not be
set at naught lightly--not when it is flanked by the perquage. By my
father's doublet, but that frieze jerkin is well cut; it suits thy figure
well--I would that my Lord Leicester here had such a tailor. But this
perquage--I doubt not there are those here at Court who are most ignorant
of its force and moment. My Lord Chamberlain, my Lord Leicester, Cecil
here--confusion sits in their faces. The perquage, which my father's
patent approved, has served us well, I doubt not, is a comfort to our
realm and a dignity befitting the wearer of that frieze jerkin. Speak to
their better understanding, Monsieur of Rozel."
"Speak, Nuncio, and you shall have comforts, and be given in marriage,
multiple or singular, even as I," said the fool, and touched him on the
breast with his bells.
Lempriere had recovered his heart, and now was set full sail in the
course he had charted for himself in Jersey. In large words and larger
manner he explained most innocently the sacred privilege of perquage.
"And how often have you used the right, friend?" asked Elizabeth.
"But once in ten years, your noble Majesty."
"When last?"
"But yesterday a week, your universal Majesty." Elizabeth raised her
eyebrows. "Who was the criminal, what the occasion?"
"The criminal was one Buonespoir, the occasion our coming hither to wait
upon the Queen of England and our Lady of Normandy, for such is your
well-born Majesty to your loyal Jersiais." And thereupon he plunged into
an impeachment of De Carteret of St. Ouen's, and stumbled through a blunt
broken story of the wrongs and the sorrows of Michel and Angele and the
doings of Buonespoir in their behalf.
Elizabeth frowned and interrupted him. "I have heard of this Buonespoir,
Monsieur, through others than the Seigneur of St. Ouen's. He is an
unlikely squire of dames. There's a hill in my kingdom has long bided his
coming. Where waits the rascal now?"
"In the ante-chapel, your Majesty."
"By the rood!" said Elizabeth in sudden amazement. "In my ante-chapel,
forsooth!"
She looked beyond the doorway and saw the great red-topped figure of
Buonespoir, his good-natured, fearless fare, his shock of hair, his clear
blue eye--he was not thirty feet away.
"He comes to crave pardon for his rank offences, your benignant Majesty,"
said Lempriere.
The humour of the thing rushed upon the Queen. Never before were two such
naive folk at court. There was not a hair of duplicity in the heads of
the two, and she judged them well in her mind.
"I will see you stand together--you and your henchman," she said to
Rozel, and moved on to the antechapel, the Court following. Standing
still just inside the doorway, she motioned Buonespoir to come near. The
pirate, unconfused, undismayed, with his wide blue asking eyes, came
forward and dropped upon his knees. Elizabeth motioned Lempriere to stand
a little apart.
Thereupon she set a few questions to Buonespoir, whose replies,
truthfully given, showed that he had no real estimate of his crimes, and
was indifferent to what might be their penalties. He had no moral sense
on the one hand, on the other, no fear.
Suddenly she turned to Lempriere again. "You came, then, to speak for
this Michel de la Foret, the exile--?"
"And for the demoiselle Angele Aubert, who loves him, your Majesty."
"I sent for this gentleman exile a fortnight ago--" She turned towards
Leicester inquiringly.
"I have the papers here, your Majesty," said Leicester, and gave a packet
over.
"And where have you De la Foret?" said Elizabeth. "In durance, your
Majesty."
"When came he hither?"
"Three days gone," answered Leicester, a little gloomily, for there was
acerbity in Elizabeth's voice. Elizabeth seemed about to speak, then
dropped her eyes upon the papers, and glanced hastily at their contents.
"You will have this Michel de la Foret brought to my presence as fast as
horse can bring him, my Lord," she said to Leicester. "This rascal of the
sea--Buonespoir--you will have safe bestowed till I recall his existence
again," she said to a captain of men-at-arms; "and you, Monsieur of
Rozel, since you are my butler, will get you to my dining-room, and do
your duty--the office is not all perquisites," she added smoothly. She
was about to move on, when a thought seemed to strike her, and she added,
"This Mademoiselle and her father whom you brought hither-where are
they?"
"They are even within the palace grounds, your imperial Majesty,"
answered Lempriere.
"You will summon them when I bid you," she said to the Seigneur; "and you
shall see that they have comforts and housing as befits their station,"
she added to the Lord Chamberlain.
So did Elizabeth, out of a whimsical humour, set the highest in the land
to attend upon unknown, unconsidered exiles.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Boldness without rashness, and hope without vain thinking
Nothing is futile that is right
Religion to him was a dull recreation invented chiefly for women
MICHEL AND ANGELE
[A Ladder of Swords]
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 2.
CHAPTER VIII
Five minutes later, Lempriere of Rozel, as butler to the Queen, saw a
sight of which he told to his dying day. When, after varied troubles
hereafter set down, he went back to Jersey, he made a speech before the
Royal Court, in which he told what chanced while Elizabeth was at chapel.
"There stood I, butler to the Queen," he said, with a large gesture, "but
what knew I of butler's duties at Greenwich Palace! Her Majesty had given
me an office where all the work was done for me. Odds life, but when I
saw the Gentleman of the Rod and his fellow get down on their knees to
lay the cloth upon the table, as though it was an altar at Jerusalem, I
thought it time to say my prayers. There was naught but kneeling and
retiring. Now it was the salt-cellar, the plate, and the bread; then it
was a Duke's Daughter--a noble soul as ever lived--with a tasting-knife,
as beautiful as a rose; then another lady enters who glares at me, and
gets to her knees as does the other. Three times up and down, and then
one rubs the plate with bread and salt, as solemn as St. Ouen's when he
says prayers in the Royal Court. Gentles, that was a day for Jersey. For
there stood I as master of all, the Queen's butler, and the greatest
ladies of the land doing my will--though it was all Persian mystery to
me, save when the kettle-drums began to beat and the trumpet to blow, and
in walk bareheaded the Yeomen of the Guard, all scarlet, with a golden
rose on their backs, bringing in a course of twenty-four gold dishes; and
I, as Queen's butler, receiving them.
"Then it was I opened my mouth amazed at the endless dishes filled with
niceties of earth, and the Duke's Daughter pops onto my tongue a mouthful
of the first dish brought, and then does the same to every Yeoman of the
Guard that carried a dish--that her notorious Majesty be safe against the
hand of poisoners. There was I, fed by a Duke's Daughter; and thus was
Jersey honoured; and the Duke's Daughter whispers to me, as a dozen other
unmarried ladies enter, 'The Queen liked not the cut of your frieze
jerkin better than do I, Seigneur.' With that she joins the others, and
they all kneel down and rise up again, and lifting the meat from the
table, bear it into the Queen's private chamber.
"When they return, and the Yeomen of the Guard go forth, I am left alone
with these ladies, and there stand with twelve pair of eyes upon me,
little knowing what to do. There was laughter in the faces of some, and
looks less taking in the eyes of others; for my Lord Leicester was to
have done the duty I was set to do that day, and he the greatest gallant
of the kingdom, as all the world knows. What they said among themselves I
know not, but I heard Leicester's name, and I guessed that they were
mostly in the pay of his soft words. But the Duke's Daughter was on my
side, as was proved betimes when Leicester made trouble for us who went
from Jersey to plead the cause of injured folk. Of the Earl's enmity to
me--a foolish spite of a great nobleman against a Norman-Jersey
gentleman--and of how it injured others for the moment, you all know; but
we had him by the heels before the end of it, great earl and favourite as
he was."
In the same speech Lempriere told of his audience with the Queen, even as
she sat at dinner, and of what she said to him; but since his words give
but a partial picture of events, the relation must not be his.
When the Queen returned from chapel to her apartments, Lempriere was
called by an attendant, and he stood behind the Queen's chair until she
summoned him to face her. Then, having finished her meal, and dipped her
fingers in a bowl of rose-water, she took up the papers Leicester had
given her--the Duke's Daughter had read them aloud as she ate--and said:
"Now, my good Seigneur of Rozel, answer me these few questions: First,
what concern is it of yours whether this Michel de la Foret be sent back
to France, or die here in England?"
"I helped to save his life at sea--one good turn deserves another, your
high-born Majesty."
The Queen looked sharply at him, then burst out laughing.
"God's life, but here's a bull making epigrams!" she said. Then her
humour changed. "See you, my butler of Rozel, you shall speak the truth,
or I'll have you where that jerkin will fit you not so well a month
hence. Plain answers I will have to plain questions, or De Carteret of
St. Ouen's shall have his will of you and your precious pirate. So bear
yourself as you would save your head and your honours."
Lempriere of Rozel never had a better moment than when he met the Queen
of England's threats with faultless intrepidity. "I am concerned about my
head, but more about my honours, and most about my honour," he replied.
"My head is my own, my honours are my family's, for which I would give my
head when needed; and my honour defends both until both are naught--and
all are in the service of my Queen."
Smiling, Elizabeth suddenly leaned forward, and, with a glance of
satisfaction towards the Duke's Daughter, who was present, said:
"I had not thought to find so much logic behind your rampant skull," she
said. "You've spoken well, Rozel, and you shall speak by the book to the
end, if you will save your friends. What concern is it of yours whether
Michel de la Foret live or die?"
"It is a concern of one whom I've sworn to befriend, and that is my
concern, your ineffable Majesty." "Who is the friend?"
"Mademoiselle Aubert."
"The betrothed of this Michel de la Foret?"
"Even so, your exalted Majesty. But I made sure De la Foret was dead when
I asked her to be my wife."
"Lord, Lord, Lord, hear this vast infant, this hulking baby of a
Seigneur, this primeval innocence! Listen to him, cousin," said the
Queen, turning again to the Duke's Daughter. "Was ever the like of it in
any kingdom of this earth? He chooses a penniless exile--he, a butler to
the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage--and a Huguenot withal.
He is refused; then comes the absent lover over sea, to shipwreck; and
our Seigneur rescues him, 'fends him; and when yon master exile is in
peril, defies his Queen's commands"--she tapped the papers lying beside
her on the table--"then comes to England with the lady to plead the case
before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and
lieutenant. There is the case, is't not?"
"I swore to be her friend," answered Lempriere stubbornly, "and I have
done according to my word."
"There's not another nobleman in my kingdom who would not have thought
twice about the matter, with the lady aboard his ship on the high
seas-'tis a miraculous chivalry, cousin," she added to the Duke's
Daughter, who bowed, settled herself again on her velvet cushion, and
looked out of the corner of her eyes at Lempriere.
"You opposed Sir Hugh Pawlett's officers who went to arrest this De la
Foret," continued Elizabeth. "Call you that serving your Queen? Pawlett
had our commands."
"I opposed them but in form, that the matter might the more surely be
brought to your Majesty's knowledge."
"It might easily have brought you to the Tower, man."
"I had faith that your Majesty would do right in this, as in all else. So
I came hither to tell the whole story to your judicial Majesty."
"Our thanks for your certificate of character," said the Queen, with
amused irony. "What is your wish? Make your words few and plain."
"I desire before all that Michel de la Foret shall not be returned to the
Medici, most radiant Majesty."
"That's plain. But there are weighty matters 'twixt France and England,
and De la Foret may turn the scale one way or another. What follows,
beggar of Rozel?"
"That Mademoiselle Aubert and her father may live without let or
hindrance in Jersey."
"That you may eat sour grapes ad eternam? Next?"
"That Buonespoir be pardoned all offences and let live in Jersey on
pledge that he sin no more, not even to raid St. Ouen's cellars of the
muscadella reserved for your generous Majesty."
There was such humour in Lempriere's look as he spoke of the muscadella
that the Queen questioned him closely upon Buonespoir's raid; and so
infectious was his mirth, as he told the tale, that Elizabeth, though she
stamped her foot in assumed impatience, smiled also.
"You shall have your Buonespoir, Seigneur," she said; "but for his future
you shall answer as well as he."
"For what he does in Jersey Isle, your commiserate Majesty?"
"For crime elsewhere, if he be caught, he shall march to Tyburn, friend,"
she answered. Then she hurriedly added: "Straightway go and bring
Mademoiselle and her father hither. Orders are given for their disposal.
And to-morrow at this hour you shall wait upon me in their company. I
thank you for your services as butler this day, Monsieur of Rozel. You do
your office rarely."
As the Seigneur left Elizabeth's apartments, he met the Earl of Leicester
hurrying thither, preceded by the Queen's messenger. Leicester stopped
and said, with a slow malicious smile: "Farming is good, then--you have
fine crops this year on your holding?"
The point escaped Lempriere at first, for the favourite's look was all
innocence, and he replied: "You are mistook, my lord. You will remember I
was in the presence-chamber an hour ago, my lord. I am Lempriere,
Seigneur of Rozel, butler to her Majesty."
"But are you, then? I thought you were a farmer and raised cabbages."
Smiling, Leicester passed on.
For a moment the Seigneur stood pondering the Earl's words and angrily
wondering at his obtuseness. Then suddenly he knew he had been mocked,
and he turned and ran after his enemy; but Leicester had vanished into
the Queen's apartments.
The Queen's fool was standing near, seemingly engaged in the light
occupation of catching imaginary flies, buzzing with his motions. As
Leicester disappeared he looked from under his arm at Lempriere. "If a
bird will not stop for the salt to its tail, then the salt is damned,
Nuncio; and you must cry David! and get thee to the quarry."
Lempriere stared at him swelling with rage; but the quaint smiling of the
fool conquered him, and instead of turning on his heel, he spread himself
like a Colossus and looked down in grandeur. "And wherefore cry David!
and get quarrying?" he asked. "Come, what sense is there in thy words,
when I am wroth with yonder nobleman?"
"Oh, Nuncio, Nuncio, thou art a child of innocence and without history.
The salt held not the bird for the net of thy anger, Nuncio; so it is
meet that other ways be found. David the ancient put a stone in a sling
and Goliath laid him down like an egg in a nest--therefore, Nuncio, get
thee to the quarry. Obligato, which is to say Leicester yonder, hath no
tail--the devil cut it off and wears it himself. So let salt be damned,
and go sling thy stone!"
Lempriere was good-humoured again. He fumbled in his purse and brought
forth a gold-piece. "Fool, thou hast spoken like a man born sensible and
infinite. I understand thee like a book. Thou hast not folly and thou
shalt not be answered as if thou wast a fool. But in terms of gold shalt
thou have reply." He put the gold-piece in the fool's hand and slapped
him on the shoulder.
"Why now, Nuncio," answered the other, "it is clear that there is a fool
at Court, for is it not written that a fool and his money are soon
parted? And this gold-piece is still hot with running 'tween thee and
me."
Lempriere roared. "Why, then, for thy hit thou shalt have another
gold-piece, gossip. But see"--his voice lowered--"know you where is my
friend, Buonespoir, the pirate? Know you where he is in durance?"
"As I know marrow in a bone I know where he hides, Nuncio, so come with
me," answered the fool.
"If De Carteret had but thy sense, we could live at peace in Jersey,"
rejoined Lempriere, and strode ponderously after the light-footed fool
who capered forth singing:
"Come hither, O come hither,
There's a bride upon her bed;
They have strewn her o'er with roses,
There are roses 'neath her head:
Life is love and tears and laughter,
But the laughter it is dead
Sing the way to the Valley, to the Valley!
Hey, but the roses they are red!"
CHAPTER IX
The next day at noon, as her Majesty had advised the Seigneur, De la
Foret was ushered into the presence. The Queen's eye quickened as she saw
him, and she remarked with secret pleasure the figure and bearing of this
young captain of the Huguenots. She loved physical grace and prowess with
a full heart. The day had almost passed when she would measure all men
against Leicester in his favour; and he, knowing this clearly now, saw
with haughty anxiety the gradual passing of his power, and clutched
futilely at the vanishing substance. Thus it was that he now spent his
strength in getting his way with the Queen in little things. She had been
so long used to take his counsel--in some part wise and skilful--that
when she at length did without it, or followed her own mind, it became a
fever with him to let no chance pass for serving his own will by
persuading her out of hers. This was why he had spent an hour the day
before in sadly yet vaguely reproaching her for the slight she put upon
him in the presence-chamber by her frown; and another in urging her to
come to terms with Catherine de Medici in this small affair--since the
Frenchwoman had set her revengeful heart upon it--that larger matters
might be settled to the gain of England. It was not so much that he had
reason to destroy De la Foret, as that he saw that the Queen was disposed
to deal friendly by him and protect him. He did not see the danger of
rousing in the Queen the same unreasoning tenaciousness of will upon just
such lesser things as might well be left to her advisers. In spite of
which he almost succeeded, this very day, in regaining, for a time at
least, the ground he had lost with her. He had never been so adroit, so
brilliant, so witty, so insinuating; and he left her with the feeling
that if he had his way concerning De la Foret--a mere stubborn whim, with
no fair reason behind it--his influence would be again securely set. The
sense of crisis was on him.