Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — CompleteParker, Gilbert
History
Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Complete
Parker, Gilbert
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction; Huguenots -- Fiction; Jersey (Channel Islands) -- Fiction
To this De la Foret replied that he had given his heart and life to one
cause, and since Montgomery had lost all, even life, the least Michel
de la Foret could do was to see that the woman who loved him be not
unprotected in the world. Also, since he might not at this present
fight for the cause, he could speak for it; and he thanked the Queen
of England for having shown him his duty. All that he desired was to be
quiet for a space somewhere in “her high Majesty’s good realm,” till his
way was clear to him.
“You would return to Jersey, then, with our friend of Rozel?” Elizabeth
said, with a gesture towards Lempriere, who, now recovered from his
wound, was present at the audience.
De la Foret inclined his head. “If it be your high Majesty’s pleasure.”
And Lempriere of Rozel said: “He would return with myself your noble
Majesty’s friend before all the world, and Buonespoir his ship the
Honeyflower.”
Elizabeth’s lips parted in a smile, for she was warmed with the luxury
of doing good, and she answered:
“I know not what the end of this will be, whether our loyal Lempriere
will become a pirate or Buonespoir a butler to my Court; but it is too
pretty a hazard to forego in a world of chance. By the rood, but I have
never, since I sat on my father’s throne, seen black so white as I have
done this past three months. You shall have your Buonespoir, good Rozel;
but if he plays pirate any more--tell him this from his Queen--upon an
English ship, I will have his head, if I must needs send Drake of Devon
to overhaul him.”
That same hour the Queen sent for Angele, and by no leave, save her
own, arranged the wedding-day, and ordained that it should take place at
Southampton, whither the Comtesse de Montgomery had come on her way
to Greenwich to plead for the life of Michel de la Foret, and to beg
Elizabeth to relieve her poverty. Both of which things Elizabeth did, as
the annals of her life record.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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