A Ladder of Swords Part 18

She stepped on, then paused again and looked back. "And I forbid fighting betwixt you," she said, in a loud voice, looking at De la Foret and Leicester.

Without further sign or look, she moved on. Close behind came Angele and the Duke's Daughter, and Leicester followed at some distance.

XVIII

Not far from the palace, in a secluded place hidden by laburnum, roses, box, and rhododendrons, there was a quaint and beautiful retreat. High up on all sides of a circle of green the flowering trees and shrubs interlaced their branches, and the gra.s.s, as smooth as velvet, was of such a note as soothed the eye and quieted the senses. In one segment of the verdant circle was a sort of open bower made of poles, up which roses climbed and hung across in gay festoons; and in two other segments mossy banks made resting-places.

Here, in days gone by, when Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, first drew the eyes of his Queen upon him, Elizabeth came to listen to his vows of allegiance which swam in floods of pa.s.sionate devotion to her person. Christopher Hatton, Sir Henry Lee, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Suss.e.x, a race of gallants, had knelt upon this pleasant sward. Here they had declared a devotion that, historically platonic, had a personal pa.s.sion which, if rewarded by no personal requital, must have been an expensive outlay of patience and emotion.

But those days had gone. Robert Dudley had advanced far past his fellows, had locked himself into the chamber of the Queen's confidence, had for long proved himself necessary to her, had mingled deference and admiration with an air of monopoly, and had then advanced to an air of possession, of suggested control. Then had begun his decline. England and England's Queen could have but one ruler, and upon an occasion in the past Elizabeth made it clear by the words she used: "G.o.d's death, my lord! I have wished you well; but my favor is not so locked up for you that others shall not partake thereof; and, if you think to rule here, I will take a course to see you forthcoming. I will have here but one mistress and no master."

In these words she but declared what was the practice of her life, the persistent pa.s.sion of her rule. The world could have but one sun, and every man or woman who sought its warmth must be a sun-wors.h.i.+pper. There could be no divided faith, no luminaries in the sky save those which lived by borrowed radiance.

Here in this bright theatre of green and roses, poets had sung the praises of this Queen to her unblus.h.i.+ng and approving face; here ladies thrice as beautiful as she had begged her to tell them the secret of her beauty, so much greater than that of any living woman; and she was pleased even when she knew they flattered but to gain her smile--it was the tribute that power exacts. The place was a cenotaph of past romance and pleasure. Every leaf of every tree and flower had impressions of glories, of love, ambition, and intrigue, of tears and laughter, of joyousness and ruin. Never a spot in England where so much had been said and done, so far-reaching in effect and influence. But its glory was departed, its day was done, it was a place of dreams and memories: the Queen came here no more. Many years had withered since she had entered this charmed spot; and that it remained so fine was but evidence of the care of those to whom she had given strict orders seven years past that in and out of season it must be ever kept as it had erstwhile been. She had never entered the place since the day the young Marquis of Wess.e.x, whom she had imprisoned for marrying secretly and without her consent, on his release came here, and, with a concentrated bitterness and hate, had told her such truths as she never had heard from man or woman since she was born. He had impeached her in such cold and murderous terms as must have made wince even a woman with no pride. To Elizabeth it was gall and wormwood. When he at last demanded the life of the young wife who had died in enforced seclusion, because she had married the man she loved, Elizabeth was so confounded that she hastily left the place, saying no word in response. This attack had been so violent, so deadly, that she had seemed unnerved, and forbore to command him to the Tower or to death.

"You, in whose breast love never stirred, deny the right to others whom G.o.d blessed with it," he cried. "Envious of mortal happiness that dare exist outside your will or gift, you sunder and destroy.

You, in whose hands was power to give joy, gave death. What you have sown you shall reap. Here, on this spot, I charge you with high treason, with treachery to the people over whom you have power as a trust, which trust you have made a scourge."

With such words as these he had a.s.sailed her, and for the first time in her life she had been confounded. In safety he had left the place and taken his way to Italy, from which he had never returned, though she had sent for him in kindness. Since that day Elizabeth had never come hither; and by-and-by none of her court came save the Duke's Daughter, and her fool, who both made it their resort. Here the fool came upon the Friday before Trinity Day, bringing with him Lempriere and Buonespoir, to whom he had much attached himself.

It was a day of light and warmth, and the place was like a basket of roses. Having seen the two serving-men dispose, in a convenient place, the refreshment which Lempriere's appet.i.te compelled, the fool took command of the occasion, and made the two sit upon a bank, while he prepared the repast.

It was a notable trio; the dwarfish fool, with his s.h.a.ggy, black head, twisted mouth, and watchful, wandering eye, whose foolishness was but the flaunting cover of shrewd observation and trenchant vision. Going where he would, and saying what he listed, now in the Queen's inner chamber, then in the midst of the council, unconsidered, and the b.u.t.t of all, he paid for his bed and bounty by shooting shafts of foolery, which as often made his listeners shrink as caused their laughter. The Queen he called Delicio, and Leicester, Obligato--as one who piped to another's dance. He had taken to Buonespoir at the first glance, and had frequented him, and Lempriere had presently been added to his favor. He had again and again been messenger between them, as also of late between Angele and Michel, whose case he viewed from a stand-point of great cheerfulness, and treated as children playing on the sands--as, indeed, he did the Queen and all near to her. But Buonespoir, the pirate, was to him reality and the actual, and he called him Bono Publico. At first Lempriere, ever jealous of his importance, was inclined to treat him with elephantine condescension; but he could not long hold out against the boon archness of the jester, and had collapsed suddenly into as close a friends.h.i.+p as that between himself and Buonespoir.

A rollicking spirit was his own fullest stock-in-trade, and it won him like a brother.

So it was that here, in the very bosom of the forest, lured by the pipe the fool played, Lempriere burst forth into song, in one hand a bottle of canary, in the other a handful of comfits:

"Duke William was a Norman (_Spread the sail to the breeze!_) That did to England ride; At Hastings by the Channel (_Drink the wine to the lees!_) Our Harold the Saxon died.

If there be no cakes from Normandy, There'll be more ale in England!"

"Well sung, n.o.bility, and well said," cried Buonespoir, with a rose by the stem in his mouth, one hand beating time to the music, the other clutching a flagon of muscadella; "for the Normans are kings in England, and there's drink in plenty at the court of our Lady d.u.c.h.ess."

"Delicio shall never want while I have a penny of hers to spend,"

quoth the fool, feeling for another tune.

"Should conspirators prevail, and the d.a.m.nedest be, she hath yet the Manor of Rozel and my larder," urged Lempriere, with a splutter through the canary.

"That shall be only when the fifth wind comes--it is so ordained, Nuncio!" said the fool, blinking.

Buonespoir set down his flagon. "And what wind is the fifth wind?"

he asked, scratching his bullet-head, his childlike, wide-spread eyes smiling the question.

"There be now four winds--the north wind, and his sisters, the east, the west, and south. When G.o.d sends a fifth wind, then conspirators shall wear crowns. Till then Delicio shall sow and I shall reap, as is Heaven's will."

Lempriere lay back and roared with laughter. "Before Belial, there never was such another as thou, fool. Conspirators shall die and not prevail, for a man may not marry his sister, and the north wind shall have no progeny. So there shall be no fifth wind."

"Proved, proved!" cried the fool. "The north wind shall go whistle for a mate--there shall be no fifth wind. So Delicio shall still sail by the compa.s.s, and shall still compa.s.s all, and yet be compa.s.sed by none; for it is written, Who compa.s.seth Delicio existeth not."

Buonespoir watched a lark soaring, as though its flight might lead him through the fool's argument clearly. Lempriere closed his eye and struggled with it, his lips out-pursed, his head sunk on his breast. Suddenly his eyes opened; he brought the bottle of canary down with a thud on the turf. "'Fore Michael and all angels, I have it, fool; I travel, I conceive. De Carteret of St. Ouen's must have gone to the block ere conceiving so. I must conceive thus of the argument. He who compa.s.seth the Queen existeth not, for, compa.s.sing, he dieth."

"So it is by the hour-gla.s.s and the fortune told in the porringer.

You have conceived like a man, Nuncio."

"And conspirators, I conceive, must die, so long as there be honest men to slay them," rejoined the seigneur.

"Must only honest men slay conspirators? Oh, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!" wheezed Buonespoir, with a grin. He placed his hand upon his head in self-pity. "Buonespoir, art thou d.a.m.ned by muscadella?"

he murmured.

"But thou art purged of the past, Bono Publico," answered the fool.

"Since Delicio hath looked upon thee she hath shredded the Tyburn lien upon thee--thou art flushed like a mountain spring; and conspirators shall fall down by thee if thou, pa.s.sant, dost fall by conspirators in the way. Bono Publico, thou shalt live by good company. Henceforth contraband shall be spurned and the book of grace opened."

Buonespoir's eyes laughed like a summer sky, but he scratched his head and turned over the rose-stem in his mouth reflectively. "So be it, then, if it must be; but yesterday the Devon sea-sweeper, Francis Drake, overhauled me in my cottage, coming from the Queen, who had infused him of me. 'I have heard of you from a high mast-head,' said he. 'If the Spanish main allure you, come with me. There be galleons yonder still; they shall cough up doubloons.' 'It hath a sound of piracy,' said I. 'I am expurgated. My name is written on clean paper now, blessed be the name of the Queen!' 'Tut, tut, Buonesperado,'

laughed he, 'you shall forget that Tyburn is not a fable if you care to have doubloons reminted at the Queen's mint. It is meet Spanish Philip's head be molted to oblivion, and Elizabeth's raised, so that good silver be purged of Popish alloy.' But that I had sworn by the little finger of St. Peter, when the moon was full, never to leave the English seas, I also would have gone with Drake of Devon this day. It is a man and a master of men, that Drake of Devon."

"'Tis said that when a man hath naught left but life, and hath treated his honor like a poor relation, he goes to the Spanish main with Drake and Grenville," said Lempriere.

"Then must Obligato go, for he hath such credentials," said the fool, blowing thistledown in the air. "Yesterday was no Palm Sunday to Leicester. Delicio's head was high. 'Imperial Majesty,' quoth Obligato, his knees upon the rushes, 'take my life, but send me not forth into darkness where I shall see my Queen no more. By the light of my Queen's eyes have I walked, and pains of h.e.l.l are my Queen's displeasure.' 'Methinks thy humbleness is tardy,' quoth Delicio. 'No c.o.c.k shall crow by my nest,' said she. 'And, by the mantle of Elijah, I am out with sour faces and men of phlegm and rheum. I will be gay once more. So get thee gone to Kenilworth, and stray not from it on thy peril. Take thy malaise with thee, and I shall laugh again.' And he goeth. So that was the end of Obligato, and now cometh another tune."

"She hath good cheer?" asked Lempriere, eagerly.

"I have never seen Delicio smile these seven years as she smiled to-day; and when she kissed Amicitia I sent for my confessor and made my will. Delicio hath come to spring-time, and the voice of the turtle is in her ear."

"Amicitia--and who is Amicitia?" asked Lempriere, well flushed with wine.

"She who hath brought Obligato to the diminuendo and finale,"

answered the fool; "even she who hath befriended the Huguenottine of the black eyes."

"Ah, she, the Duke's Daughter--ah, that is a flower of a lady! Did she not say that my jerkin fitted featly when I did act as butler to her adorable Majesty three months syne? She hath no mate in the world save Mademoiselle Aubert, whom I brought hither to honor and to fame."

"To honor and fame, was it--but by the hill of desperandum, Nuncio,"

said the fool, prodding him with his stick of bells.

"'Desperandum!' I know not Latin, it amazes me," said Lempriere, waving a lofty hand.

"She--the Huguenottine--was a-mazed, also, and from the maze was played by Obligato."

"How so! how so!" cried the seigneur, catching at his meaning. "Did Leicester waylay and siege? 'Sblood, had I known this I'd have broached him and swallowed him even on crutches!"

"She made him raise the siege, she turned his own guns upon him, and in the end hath driven him hence."

By rough questioning Lempriere got from the fool, by s.n.a.t.c.hes, the story of the meeting in the maze, which had left Leicester standing with the jester's ribboned bells in his hand. Then the seigneur got to his feet and hugged the fool, bubbling with laughter.

"By all the blood of all the saints, I will give thee burial in my own grave when all's done," he spluttered; "for there never was such fooling, never such a wise fool come since Confucius and the Khan.

Good be with you, fool, and thanks be for such a lady. Thanks be also for the Duke's Daughter. Ah, how she laid Leicester out! She washed him up the sh.o.r.e like behemoth, and left him gaping."