第5章

THE KING'S WISHES

It was daybreak ere the last of them had left me, for a dozen or so had lingered to play lansquenet after the others had departed. With those that remained my wager had soon faded into insignificance, as their minds became engrossed in the fluctuations of their own fortunes.

I did not play myself; I was not in the mood, and for one night, at least, of sufficient weight already I thought the game upon which Iwas launched.

I was out on the balcony as the first lines of dawn were scoring the east, and in a moody, thoughtful condition I had riveted my eyes upon the palace of the Luxembourg, which loomed a black pile against the lightening sky,, when Mironsac came out to join me. A gentle, lovable lad was Mironsac, not twenty years of age, and with the face and manners of a woman. That he was attached to me I knew.

`Monsieur le Marquis," said he softly, "I am desolated at this wager into which they have forced you.""Forced me?" I echoed. "No, no; they did not force me. And yet,"I reflected, with a sigh, "perhaps they did.""I have been thinking, monsieur, that if the King were to hear of it the evil might be mended.""But the King must not hear of it, Armand," I answered quickly.

"Even if he did, matters would be no better - much worse, possibly.""But, monsieur, this thing done in the heat of wine - ""Is none the less done, Armand," I concluded. "And I for one do not wish it undone.""But have you no thought for the lady?" he cried.

I laughed at him. "Were I still eighteen, boy, the thought might trouble me. Had I my illusions, I might imagine that my wife must be some woman of whom I should be enamoured. As it is, I have grown to the age of twenty-eight unwed. Marriage becomes desirable. Imust think of an heir to all the wealth of Bardelys. And so I go to Languedoc. If the lady be but half the saint that fool Chatellerault has painted her, so much the better for my children;if not, so much the worse. There is the dawn, Mironsac, and it is time we were abed. Let us drive these plaguy gamesters home."When the last of them had staggered down my steps, and I had bidden a drowsy lacquey extinguish the candles, I called Ganymede to light me to bed and aid me to undress. His true name was Rodenard; but my friend La Fosse, of mythological fancy, had named him Ganymede, after the cup-bearer of the gods, and the name had clung to him.

He was a man of some forty years of age, born into my father's service, and since become my intendant, factotum, majordomo, and generalissimo of my regiment of servants and my establishments both in Paris and at Bardelys.

We had been to the wars together ere I had cut my wisdom teeth, and thus had he come to love me. There was nothing this invaluable servant could not do. At baiting or shoeing a horse, at healing a wound, at roasting a capon, or at mending a doublet, he was alike a master, besides possessing a score of other accomplishments that do not now occur to me, which in his campaigning he had acquired.

Of late the easy life in Paris had made him incline to corpulency, and his face was of a pale, unhealthy fullness.

To-night, as he assisted me to undress, it wore an expression of supreme woe.

"Monseigneur is going into Languedoc?" he inquired sorrowfully.

He always called me his "seigneur," as did the other of my servants born at Bardelys.

"Knave, you have been listening," said I.