The King's Esquires.

by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.

HOW YOUNG DENIS KEPT GUARD.

His Most Christian Majesty King Francis the First had a great preference for his Palace of Fontainebleau among the many places of residence from which he could choose, and it is interesting to glance into that magnificent palace on a certain afternoon in the year 151--. In a special apartment, from which direct access could be obtained to the guard chamber, where a detachment of the favourite musketeers of the King of France was on duty, and which also communicated with the monarch's private apartments, a youth, nearly a man but not quite was impatiently striding up and down. He stopped every now and then to glance out of the low window, from which a view could be obtained over the great Forest of Fontainebleau, where Philip Augustus in the old days, centuries before, loved to go hunting. It seemed as though to the young man there was a chafing disquietude in the silence, the inaction, of the afternoon, when the inmates of the palace, like the inhabitants of the tiny little white town, retired to rest for a time in order to be ready for the evening, when life began to be lived once more.

It was a very handsome chamber in which the young man was evidencing a species of disquietude, as of awaiting the coming of somebody, or a summons. As he stopped once in his feverish pacing up and down, a ma.s.sive clock was heard to strike three. Rich mats lay on the polished floor, and the _salon_ was so lofty that high-up it seemed almost grey dusk by contrast with the bars of sunshine which came through the window.

From outside there came the challenging clarion note of a trumpet.

"Changing guard," he muttered, "already!" And then he fell to thinking of other things, for there was beneath the thud of horses' feet, the baying of a dog and a loud shout.

He turned away from the window at last and tapped the dark arras with which the walls were draped.

He was a tall, dark-eyed, well-made lad, looking handsome enough in his rich velvet doublet, evidently one who spent a large part of his time in the open air, in the chase, or perhaps in sterner work still.

"How much danger?" he murmured, and he went to one side of the room, raising the heavy folds of a curtain which concealed a door, and listening intently a minute, before dropping the drapery and then impatiently springing on to a chair. The chair stood before a long, narrow, slit-like window, and from it likewise there was little to be seen but forest, all deep green and silent, and a strip of blue sky. He sprang down again with a sigh, crossed to the other side of the chamber, lifted the curtain again, opened a door, and looked out, before closing the door, dropping the curtain, and resuming his restless walk, as if saying, "What shall I do with myself?" Somehow the answer seemed to come to that question, for he suddenly clapped his hand to its side, drew a long, thin, triangular-bladed sword from its sheath, and admiringly and caressingly examined the beautiful chased and engraved open-work steel hilt and guard, giving it a rub here and there with his dark velvet sleeve. Then he crossed to the great open carved mantelpiece, took hold of the point of the sword, pa.s.sing the blade over so that the hilt rested beyond his right shoulder; and, using the keen point as a graver, he marked-out, breast high upon one of the supporters of the chimney-piece, which happened to be a ma.s.sive half-nude figure, the shape of a heart--the figure being about four inches in diameter.

Apparently satisfied with his work, he drew back a few feet, turned up his right sleeve, and grasping his rapier by the handle, made the thin blade whistle as he waved it through the air and dropped gracefully at once into position, as if prepared to a.s.sault or receive an enemy, the enemy being the dark oak, chipped and much rubbed, semi-cla.s.sic figure, the work of some wood-carver of a hundred years before, and whose grim aspect was rendered grotesque by the want of a nose. The next minute the polished floor gave forth sounds of softly shuffling feet, and stamps, as the lad, page or esquire, and evidently for the time guardian of the ante-chamber, began to fence and foin, parry and guard, every now and then delivering a fierce thrust in the latest Italian fashion right at the marked-out heart upon the grim figure's breast. It was warm work, for the lad put plenty of spirit and life into his efforts, and before long his clear, broad forehead and the sides of a rather aquiline nose began to glisten with a very slight dew. But the efforts were quite unsuccessful, bringing forth softly uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of impatience as the keen point of the rapier stuck into the solid wood above, below, to the right and left, never once within the ellipse traced out to represent a heart. But evidently under the belief that practice makes perfect, and regardless of coming shortness of breath, the lad kept on thrusting away, so intent upon his work that he did not bear the faint smothered click as of a latch behind him, nor note a white hand from one of whose fingers glistened dully the stone _en cabochon_ of a big ruby ring.

This hand looked thin and ghastly against the dark curtain which it grasped and held on one side for some minutes, while its owner, hidden by the arras, seemed to be watching the sword-play of the lad. This went on vigorously as ever even when the tapestry was lightly brushed aside and a rather short, keen-looking, grizzled-bearded man appeared, in square black velvet cap and long gown, which half hid a closely fitting black velvet doublet and silken hose. He was armed, according to the custom of the time, with a long rapier balanced by a stiletto at his girdle, and as he dropped the curtain, his hands moved as if involuntarily to these occupants of his belt and rested there. It was not a pleasant face that watched the sword-play, for the wrinkles therein were not those of age, but deeply marked all the same.

They showed, fan-like, in two sets of rays at the corners of his eyes, and curiously about the corners of his mouth and beside his nose, as if he were about to laugh, the sort of laugh that one would give who enjoyed seeing a fellow-creature in pain; while his dark right eye seemed to glow beneath the grey s.h.a.ggy brow, at one moment in a strange fiery way, while the next, as its owner made some slight movement, it literally flashed as if sending forth scintillations of light, giving to his countenance a weird, strange aspect, emphasised by the peculiar fixed stare of his left optic, which suggested that it was doing the fixed, quiet, patient work of its master, while the other searched and flashed and sought for fresh subjects upon which its fellow might gaze.

Whatever value such a pair of eyes might be to their possessor, they had one great drawback, and that was that they caused distrust in a stranger who met him for the first time, making him involuntarily feel that this man must be having him at a disadvantage, for it was as if one eye held him in play and took up his attention, while that other with its strange fixed stare searched him through and through.

His was not a pleasant smile, and there were people about the Court who said sinister things about Master Leoni, the King's physician, and who would not have taken a dose of his medicine even to save their lives, for he had acquired a bad name, and Saint Simon had once half laughingly said:

"He knows too much about poisons to please me."

It was no wonder, then, that taking into consideration his quiet and unexpected approach, and the grim aspect of his face, the fencing lad should, when he became aware of his presence, give a violent start and slightly change colour, his exercise-flushed face turning for the moment pale. It was just after one of his most vigorous attacks upon the supporter of the great mantelpiece, one which ended in a really successful thrust delivered with a suppressed "Ha, ha!" followed by a dull thud, and a tug on the lad's part to extricate the point of his sword from its new sheath, quite a couple of inches being firmly thrust into the hard old wood right in the centre of the marked-out heart.

"Humph! At last!" said the watcher, as the boy faced round. "You won't kill many of the King's enemies, Master Denis, if you can't do better work than that."

"What!" cried the boy, flushing. "You've been watching?"

"Of course, I watch everything," said the other, smiling. "That's the way to learn. You must watch, too, my boy--good fencing masters--and learn how to parry and thrust. It's of no use to carry a fine blade like that if you don't master its use. Some day you may have to draw it to defend the King, and aim its point perhaps at an a.s.sa.s.sin's heart; and that will be a harder target to hit than that motionless mark. You seem to have drawn upon the King's furniture to the great damage of the carving. Denis, my lad, you ought to be able to handle a sword to better purpose than that. Why, even I, old man as I am, who have not held a blade in my hand this many a year, could make a better show."

"At binding up wounds perhaps," said the boy scornfully.

"Ay, and making of them too.--His Majesty is not in his chamber, I suppose?"

"Yes, he is," said the lad shortly; "asleep."

"Soundly, then, or the noise you made must have aroused him. Go and see if he is yet awake. I want to see him."

The boy frowned, and gave a tug at his weapon, which refused to leave the wood.

"Gently, my lad," said the doctor. "That is a very beautiful weapon, too good to spoil, and if you use it like that you will snap off the point, or drag the blade from the hilt."

"But it is in so fast," cried the lad impatiently, and he pulled with all his might, his anger gathering at being dictated to and taught.

"Let me," said the doctor, raising one hand; and the lad resented the offer for the moment, but on second thoughts gave way.

"Perhaps you will find it as hard as I do," he said, with a malicious smile.

"Perhaps I shall," said his elder; "but I should like to try.

Sometimes, my boy, the _tactus eruditus_ will succeed when main force fails."

"I wish you wouldn't talk Latin," said the boy impatiently, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from the sword-hilt, leaving it vibrating and swaying up and down where it stuck in the wood.

"Worse and worse," said the doctor quickly, as he caught it by the guard. "Why, Denis, you don't deserve to possess a blade like that.

There," he continued, as, apparently without an effort, he drew the rapier from its imprisonment and handed it back to the owner. "There; sheathe your blade, and if his Majesty is awake, tell him that I beg an audience."

"And if he is asleep?" said the lad.

"Let him rest," replied the other, with a smile. "Let sleeping--kings lie. They are always better tempered, my lad, when they have rested well. Take that as being the truth from an old philosopher, Denis, my boy, and act accordingly. You and I don't want to lose our heads through offending the master we serve."

"I don't," cried the boy sharply.

"Nor I," said the doctor, with a smile that was more unpleasant than ever. "There, go softly."

"Yea, I'll go," said the lad; "but I am sure he's asleep."

"If he is, make haste back and while I wait till his Majesty has ended his afternoon nap, suppose I give you one of my prescriptions on the proper way to use a sword."

"But will you?" cried the lad eagerly, his whole manner changing.

"To be sure I will. There was a time when I used to fence, and had sometimes to wound or take life to save my own. But of late years my work has been to heal."

The lad nodded sharply, rested his left hand upon the hilt of his now sheathed sword, drew aside the arras to the right of the fireplace, and pa.s.sed through the door that faced him, one which closed behind him with a soft click.

CHAPTER TWO.

A FENCING LESSON.

"Pert--impudent--all over the young courtier," said the doctor thoughtfully; "but I like the boy for his father's sake. Yes, all that was good and true. Now then, what will he say to me this time? I moved him a little yesterday, and I think that his love of adventure will make him think well of my proposals."

He stood thoughtful for a few moments, bent of form and dreamy of eye.

Then with a sudden movement he drew himself up quick and alert, and looking ten years younger, as he swung back his long gown from his shoulders, grasped his rapier by the sheath, brought round his right hand to the hilt, and drew forth a glistening blade, to hold it at arm's length, quivering in the rays of light which came athwart the room from the high-up narrow window. Then falling into position, his whole body seemed to glide forward following the blade, as he made a thrust in the most effortless way, the point of his weapon pa.s.sing into the hole made a few minutes earlier by the young esquire; and he was in the act of drawing it forth to thrust again, when the arras to his right was plucked aside and the boy stood before him.

"What, you trying!" he cried.

"Yes.--But the King?"