Fortune

When the audience had terminated in this unfortunate manner, madam’s three councillors sat long together in anxious intercourse.

“If I comprehend the disposition of man,” said the Count of Nullepart gloomily, “and more particularly the temper of princes, the puissant Castilian will be before our gates in twenty days.”

“God speed his journeying, Sir Count,” said madam, the wilful cause of our foreboding. “The sooner Castile affronts our gate the sooner shall he learn our steel.”

“We have but three hundred men-at-arms, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart.

“They shall bear themselves as thirty thousand,” said our mistress.

Madam’s three councillors exchanged glances with one another. They spoke aside.

“The most puissant prince in Spain, and we have but three hundred men-at-arms with which to deny him,” said the Count of Nullepart.

Sir Richard Pendragon teased his short chin beard.

“I’ facks,” said he, “they may be good men all and we three as a legion, but an elderly soldado who has drawn his point on an hundred fields in Europe and Asia Minor likes at least the same number of chins under the same number of noses as his adversary.”

“Are ye fearful, Sirrah Red Dragon?” said the Countess Sylvia, regarding her favourite officer with disdain.

“Not fearful at all, good your ladyship,” said the English giant, “not fearful at all, but yet addicted to the process of thought, like all deep minds of my nation.” Again the mighty warrior teased his short chin beard.

“We need an army,” said I, “and yet three hundred soldiers is the whole of our garrison.”

“And this is a fair manor,” said the Englishman, “and Richard Pendragon, knight, has a crow to pluck with the Castilian.”

This speech caused the Lady Sylvia to train the glance of a hawk upon the Englishman.

“My good Sirrah Red Dragon,” said she, “by the same token I am inclined to remember that our nephew France hath also a crow to pluck with the Castilian.”

At these words the Count of Nullepart rose from the council board with some little perturbation.

“Your nephew France, madam,” he said. “Your nephew France.”

Madam perused the Count of Nullepart’s countenance with a surprised inquiry.

“Sir Count,” said she, “I mentioned my nephew France. Have you the acquaintance of France, our worthy nephew?”

“Yes, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart with something of embarrassment, “that is, I mean no—that is, I mean—”

“What is the substance of your meaning, Sir Count?” said madam with petulance.

“It has no substance, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart.

The Count of Nullepart resumed his place at the council board with an assumption of composure.

Sir Richard Pendragon took up the thread of the discourse.

“By my hand,” said he, “this is very like a providence, to use a favourite idiom of Ferdinando the Ninth, a friend of my youth and hereditary sovereign of the Russ. If, madam, your nephew France—and craving your forgiveness, my dear soul, Richard Pendragon, honest fellow, had not guessed that, like himself, your ladyship’s grace had all these well placed relations—if, madam, as you say, your nephew France—how pleasantly, to be sure, the name trips off the tongue of one who hath the blood of kings under his doublet!—in fact, madam, in the circumstances might I not say our nephew France?—if, madam, as I say, our nephew France has a crow to pluck with the Castilian, is not this the very season in which to begin the pulling of feathers?”

“I offer you no contradiction, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia with her bearing of beautiful disdain, and with I know not how many generations of statecraft in her glance.

The English giant caused the board to groan with a blow from his great hand.

“By this hand!” he said, “your mind is a good one, madam. You are young and a female and you live in Spain, but you have a good mind. It is I suppose that even in Spain the blood of kings confers an especial nobility. Richard Pendragon, knight of Great Britain, of the Welsh Marches and the Island of Manx, is in accordance with you. The hour strikes; your nephew France must pluck his crow with the Castilian.”

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said the Count of Nullepart, “your speaking is choice, yet what if by a strange mischance the good France hath not heard the striking of the hour?”

Madam silenced the Count of Nullepart with her imperious glance.

“We will send an embassy,” said she. “This very day we will send an embassy to Paris.”

This high resolution of madam’s was received with instant favour by her councillors. Sir Richard Pendragon acclaimed it as the flower of wisdom; the Count of Nullepart gave it the accomplished and mature sanction of one who had moved much in the world; while I, who in years and merit was not the peer of these gentlemen, yet gave it the approbation of blood as honourable as any to be found in Spain.

A scrivener was called immediately to set in writing the proposal of the Countess Sylvia to her nephew France. First assuring her nephew of her personal affection for him, and a great interest in the prosperity of his affairs (a suggestion of the Count of Nullepart, who seemed highly versed in these documents), she proceeded in the language of diplomacy, in which the count continued to discover no little skill, to ask the immediate aid of four thousand men-at-arms in order that she might defend her heritage from a common enemy.

When this document was duly drawn up in folio, and the Count of Nullepart read aloud in his beautiful voice the terms which had been choicely expressed, and madam, with the air of one who held an empire within the palm of her small right hand, appended her signature with great difficulty, after twice consulting the scrivener as to the fashion of spelling her baptismal name, that it might accord with the practice of the most learned and best found minds of the age—“Because,” as she said, “if we use an ‘i’ when a ‘y’ is considered more modish, our nephew may believe we are more rustic here at Montesina than they are at Paris”—after this had been accomplished and the great ducal seal had been appended, a controversy arose among her ministers as to whose should be the honour of conveying it to its destination.

Madam herself was disposed to entrust it to the charge of the Count of Nullepart, since the grace of his appearance and the charm of his address and his knowledge of the conduct of high diplomacy seemed to mark him out for a mission of this nature. Yet no sooner had our mistress shown a disposition to give this sanction to the Count of Nullepart than Sir Richard Pendragon took umbrage.

“Good countess and ladyship,” said he, “by the body of God! I would not have you consider Richard Pendragon froward or lacking in his devoirs to one who deserves all homage. But can you have forgotten, madam, that the blood of kings flows under the doublet of that high-minded and courteous knight, of that gentle-nurtured and civil-tongued emblem of English chivalry, who has moved in court circles since his natal hour?”

“Your merit is ever before us, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia, who still permitted the English giant to stand in high favour. “Your claims are honourable, but the worshipful Count of Nullepart has natural parts.”

Sir Richard Pendragon turned down his lip with the look of a child that is petulant.

“By your leave, noble countess,” he said, “Richard Pendragon claims precedence in this high business by right of consanguinity. His royal nature, the lineal strain of Uthyr, cannot suffer it that Mounseer Nullepart, who is passing honest and a good fellow, shall take precedence of him at the court of France.”

Upon this speech of the Englishman, the Count of Nullepart was moved to smile in a fashion so subtle that he was fain to cover his face with his hand, as if to withhold its meaning.

“Not for the world, Sir Richard,” he said, with his eyes full of laughter—“nay, not for a thousand worlds would I take precedence of you at the court of France.”

As he spoke he was overwhelmed by a sudden and uncontrollable mirth.

“Why do you indulge, Sir Count, in this immoderation?” said madam curiously.

“The court of France is such an uncommonly dull place, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, with the mirth still in his eyes.

“Do you forget, Sir Count,” said madam haughtily, “that France is our nephew?”

“I do not forget it, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart; “I only marvel the more that such an aunt should have such a nephew.”

Again the Count of Nullepart began to laugh immoderately, and it was plain by the demeanour of our mistress that she must have reproved his behaviour had she not been altogether disarmed by his words.

It was here, as became a high-born caballero of my nation, that I advanced my own claims to this service, however modest they might appear. After all, my two worthy coadjutors, whatever their honour and their merit, were no more than foreigners, and this was the business of Spain.

“Under your favour, madam,” said I, “I am a kinsman of the Sardas y Boegas, whose boast it hath been since the time of Alban II. that they have served a prince of Spain. By right of natural affinity I claim to serve your grace.”

“You, brother,” said the English giant, breaking into a great roar, “you claim to serve her grace! Why, brother, you will best serve the grace of her ladyship by holding her trencher when she eats her nuncheon.”

Madam, however, inclined a courteous ear.

“And further, noble countess,” said I, under the encouragement of her regard, “this embassy is like to be one of peril. The road to France is dangerous, and much of it is the dominion of an enemy.”

“Why, you mad Iberian varlet,” cried the Englishman, “do you deny the address of a right Pendragon to outface the dangers of the way?”

“Good Sir Richard Pendragon,” I replied, “I do not question your address. It is because it is so great that I would not expose it to the accidents of travel. Madam never was in need of such notable service; you are her most notable servant; therefore I would humbly submit that you continue to sit with her in council, and devise a proper plan of war, while one who is less in mother-wit and masterful consideration embraces the perils of the road.”

Sir Richard Pendragon was well pleased with words so caressing to his self-esteem.

“This,” said he, “is good speaking for a Spaniard; and as I am a true man and a man addicted to high policy, I commend you, Don Miguel, for you have spoken well. But this embassy to the good France is an affair of moment. It touches one of the first princes of his age; and as he is one of the few at present living in Europe and Asia that one who hath grown old in the love of virtue hath not met, that true mind and honest mettle claims to conduct these negotiations by right of consanguinity.”

I know not how long we sat in council, each advancing his several claims to serve our mistress in this particular; and she, good soul and very woman, conferred no harmony upon our board. It pleased her well that her three servants should display this zeal to make trial of their merit; and though her mien declared that she was fain to consider each to be worthy, yet which of her sex will be content with one when three contend to do her service?

And so, when we were weary with our contention, and that momentous day began to wane, we reconciled our rivalry in the only natural and possible manner. As not one of us would yield his claims, and as each was equally worthy in his own opinion, and equally eligible in that of our mistress, it was proposed by the Count of Nullepart, in that agreeable fashion that none knew how to resist, that the three of us should brave the perils of the road together. And at last, reluctantly, and each with a glance at the other, we gave our assent; whereupon madam, without any reluctance at all, gave hers with the gravest dignity.

Even when we had conducted our negotiations to this issue, there was one other matter to come between us and harmony. To whom was the folio to be entrusted? In this, however, Sir Richard Pendragon showed a measure of arbitrariness that was only to be deplored. He took the signed and sealed document from off the council board, saying that, “by right of consanguinity,” he claimed the prerogative of presenting it to the good France; and that “if either Mounseer or little Don What-did-he-call-himself questioned that right, let him be good enough to pluck these letters of marque from a doublet that enclosed the blood of kings.”