"
"Me, Sire?"
"Aye, and why not? They say you can play a very deadly sword upon
necessity. This is an occasion that demands an exception from our
edict. You have my sanction to send the Comte de Chatellerault a
challenge. And see that you kill him, Bardelys!" he continued
viciously. "For, by the Mass, if you don't, I will! If he escapes
your sword, or if he survives such hurt as you may do him, the
headsman shall have him. Mordieu! is it for nothing that I am
called Louis the Just?"
I stood in thought for a moment. Then--
"If I do this thing, Sire," I ventured, "the world will say of me
that I did so to escape the payment I had incurred."
"Fool, you have not incurred it. When a man cheats, does he not
forfeit all his rights?"
"That is very true. But the world--"
"Peste!" he snapped impatiently, "you are beginning to weary me,
Marcel - and all the world does that so excellently that it needs not
your collaboration. Go your ways, man, and do as you elect. But
take my sanction to slay this fellow Chatellerault, and I shall be
the better pleased if you avail yourself of it. He is lodged at the
Auberge Royale, where probably you will find him at present. Now,
go. I have more justice to dispense in this rebellious province."
I paused a moment.
"Shall I not resume my duties near Your Majesty?"
He pondered a moment, then he smiled in his weary way.
"It would please me to have you, for these creatures are so dismally
dull, all of them.
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