CHAPTER FORTY THREE.
KING DENIS REFUSES.
Denis's heart beat wildly for a few moments, as he asked himself shouldhe be asleep or waking; but the heavy beating calmed down at once as heheard the King's slow footsteps in the outer room, and then the questionin the now well-known voice:
"No attendants?"
"No, Sire. I presume he is asleep."
"Then I must awake him," said the King sternly; "but my business is withhim alone. Go, and retire the guards. I will summon you when I havedone."
"But, your Majesty--"
"Silence! Can I not defend myself were it necessary against a woundedman? Go, and at once!"
The chamberlain, whose voice Denis had recognised at once, retired insilence.
There was the trampling of the guards, the closing of the outer door,and then as Denis lay listening all was still, while he began countingthe slow heavy beating of his heart.
"What will follow now?" he asked himself.
He knew at once, for there was a slight cough, a heavy step, and theKing strode through the dividing door into the chamber, stopped as iflooking round for a moment, and then stepped round to the side of thegreat canopied bed, drew forward a chair, and seated himself between therecumbent prisoner and the window. Then he coughed again, but sharplyand angrily this time.
"You hear me, Comte de la Seine?" he said haughtily.
It seemed to come naturally to the young esquire how to play his part--to gain all the time he could; and he slowly raised one hand and let itfall heavily back upon the coverlet.
Henry was satisfied, and his tones bespoke it, as he said:
"It is well, sir. I have stooped to pay you this visit--here thisnight, to remind you that by the way in which you have repaid myhospitality you have forfeited your life."
Denis raised his hand again, so that it came out of the shadow thrown bythe curtains into the light cast by the candles right across the bed;and as the King sat there as if watching the effect of his words, thehand was waved carelessly in the air before it was allowed to descend.
"Hah!" cried the King. "You are a Frenchman, sir, and you behave withall the flippancy of your race. I understand your gesture. It meansrecklessness. You, so to speak, tell me that you do not value yourlife. You defy me. But you will alter your tone when you are calledupon to march in the middle of my guards to the headsman's block, andsuffer there for your crime."
There was a quick impatient gesture of the hand again.
"We shall see," continued the King, with his voice growing deeper,suggestive of the hot anger that was burning in his breast. "And nowlisten to me, M. le Comte de la Seine, as you call yourself. But youhave not deceived me. I know everything, even to the reason why youhave stooped to play the part of a common cutpurse."
Denis raised his hand again with an angry gesture, and Henry continuedmore loudly:
"I repeat it, sir," he cried; "a common cutpurse; and please understandthat you are quite at my mercy. No one can save you but I. Now listen.Men call me merciless and tyrannical. Let them. I am also just, andcan be merciful when I please. Are you ready to accept my mercy?"
Denis raised his hand again quickly.
"Hah! Good! Then it is in your power to act in a way that will commandthis mercy, possibly my forgiveness, and the continuance of the feelingof friendship that you, so brilliant and talented a man, have won."
Denis raised his hand again, as if in deprecation, feeling in spite ofhis perilous position something like amusement at the success attendingthe playing of his _role_.
"Oh yes," continued the King; "you have proved yourself a man brilliant,courtly, and in every way fitted for the high position you held beforeyou stooped to the wretched chicanery and folly which brought you tothis pass. Now, sir, I tell you I am ready to be merciful and spareyour life, but upon conditions; and these stipulations which I shallmake, I tell you, you as my prisoner are bound to accept. You came hereunder false pretences to steal a jewel that was England's by the rightof conquest, making to yourself the excuse that originally it belongedto France. Is not this so?"
Denis raised his hand again.
"You do not speak," said the King. "Well, knowing as I do that you werebadly wounded by my faithful guards, and are now suffering severely foryour crime, I am willing to accept a motion of your hand, a gesture, asyour acceptation, as a reply. You see, sir, that all through this madescapade Providence was working a means of compassing its righteousends. You have fallen completely into my power, and either you submitto my terms or die."
Denis raised his hand quickly.
"You mean an appeal for mercy," cried the King. "Wait till you haveheard my terms. They are these. I have here," he continued, unfoldinga paper, "a complete renunciation on the part of France of the city ofBordeaux with the towns and territories embraced by Guienne, lands thatwere won by the good sword of my predecessors, to have and hold forthree hundred years, but which you now occupy on sufferance and by themagnanimity of the English throne, which has mercifully withheld itselffrom seizing them by an act of war."
Denis's hand, now fully in the light, was extended for a moment, butsharply withdrawn, for the fingers to begin tapping impatiently upon thecoverlet.
"Ah, you hesitate!" cried Henry. "Let me tell you that it is no timefor hesitation, and that I shall brook no argument, accept nothing but afull and sufficient resignation made now upon this paper, which needsbut your act and deed made fully by the addition of your royal name."
Denis raised his hand slowly, and let it fall heavily upon the bed.
"Hah!" cried the King, in a tone which evinced triumph and intensesatisfaction, as he rose to his feet and walked slowly to a side-tablestanding beneath one of the sconces, upon which were writing materialsready to the visitor's hand. "I am glad," continued Henry, "that youare acting so wise a part. I might call in my chamberlain and others ofmy people to witness your surrender, but I will spare the feelings of abrother monarch who is completely in my hands. Your signature, Sire,will suffice." And as he spoke he took up and dipped a pen and seized abook, to bear them in company with the paper he held to the side of thebed, where he spread the paper upon the work.
"Now, Sire," he continued, "at this moment we are enemies. Take thispen and add your royal name where I will place my finger, and I give youmy kingly word that I will wipe out from the tablets of my memory thewhole of your dastardly action, and become henceforth not only yourbrother of England, but your willing ally against all enemies who mayrise up in an endeavour to imperil our thrones. There, Sire; I presumeyou are not too weak to write. Come: take the pen."
Denis, who was now nearly at his wits' end how to continue the comedy,and beginning to flinch in his dismay at having gone so far, raised hishand slowly and closed his fingers upon the pen, while with a sigh ofsatisfaction Henry placed his index finger, upon which a large gem wasglittering, upon the blank spot beneath that which he had written uponthe paper.
"Stop!" he cried suddenly. "I had forgotten. It is not written downthere, but for it I will take your kingly word. You promise me torestore the jewel reft from my cabinet and hidden somewhere you bestknow where. Surely you can speak enough for this--the fewest words willdo. You promise by your kingly word and all that is holy to restorethat gem?"
He ceased speaking, and to one of those present the silence in that roomseemed more than awful, till Henry spoke again.
"You hear me, sir? One word will do, and that word, Yes."
The answer made Henry start back in amaze, for, desperate now, andnerving himself to meet the crisis which might mean the sacrifice of hislife, Denis with a quick flick of his fingers sent the fully featheredpen flying from the gloom of the hangings where he lay far out into theroom.
"What!" roared Henry. "You refuse?"
"I refuse," said Denis, in a hoarse whisper.
"But why?" cried Henry, half suffocated by his anger.
"Because," cried the boy defiantly, "I am no
t the King." And with aquick movement he threw back the coverlet, sprang from the bed, and toreoff his bandages, to stand there in the full light in white shirt andtrunk hose, scattering the wrappings which had disfigured his face, justas, startled in his turn and fully expecting an attack, Henry took acouple of steps backward and drew his sword.
The King's Esquires; Or, The Jewel of France Page 43