A Ladder of Swords: A Tale of Love, Laughter and TearsParker, Gilbert
History
A Ladder of Swords: A Tale of Love, Laughter and Tears
Parker, Gilbert
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction; Huguenots -- Fiction; Jersey (Channel Islands) -- Fiction
“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, nobility, 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
Duchess.”
“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 damnedest be, she hath yet the
Manor of Rozel and my larder,” urged Lemprière, 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 God sends a fifth wind, then conspirators
shall wear crowns. Till then Delicio shall sow and I shall reap, as
is Heaven’s will.”
Lemprière 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 compass, and shall still compass all, and yet be compassed by
none; for it is written, Who compasseth Delicio existeth not.”
Buonespoir watched a lark soaring, as though its flight might lead
him through the fool’s argument clearly. Lemprière 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 compasseth the Queen existeth not, for, compassing,
he dieth.”
“So it is by the hour-glass 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 damned by muscadella?”
he murmured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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