Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Volume 1Parker, Gilbert
History
Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Volume 1
Parker, Gilbert
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction; Huguenots -- Fiction; Jersey (Channel Islands) -- Fiction
If he had said that a voice had called him hither as one called her to
England, it had not sounded strange; for she was not thinking that this
was one who superstitiously swore by the little finger of St. Peter, but
only that he was the man who had brought her Michel from France, who had
been a faithful friend to her and to her father.
"What brings me hither?" Buonespoir laughed low in his chest. "Even to
fetch to the Seigneur of Rozel, a friend of mine by every token of
remembrance, a dozen flagons of golden muscadella."
To Angele no suggestion flashed that these flagons of muscadella had
come from the cellar of the Seigneur of St. Ouen's, where they had been
reserved for a certain royal visit. Nothing was in her mind save the one
thought-that she must follow Michel.
"Will you take me to England?" she asked, putting a hand quickly on his
arm.
He had been laughing hard, picturing to himself what Lempriere of Rozel
would say when he sniffed the flagon of St. Ouen's best wine, and for an
instant he did not take in the question; but he stared at her now as the
laugh slowly subsided through notes of abstraction and her words worked
their way into his brain.
"Will you take me, Buonespoir?" she urged. "Take you--?" he questioned.
"To England."
"And myself to Tyburn?"
"Nay, to the Queen."
"'Tis the same thing. Head of Abel! Elizabeth hath heard of me. The
Seigneur of St. Ouen's and others have writ me down a pirate to her. She
would not pardon the muscadella," he added, with another laugh, looking
down where the flagons lay.
"She must pardon more than that," exclaimed Angele, and hastily she told
him of what had happened to Michel de la Foret, and why she would go.
"Thy father, then?" he asked, scowling hard in his attempt to think it
out.
"He must go with me--I will seek him now."
"It must be at once, i' faith, for how long, think you, can I stay here
unharmed? I was sighted off St. Ouen's shore a few hours agone."
"To-night?" she asked.
"By twelve, when we shall have the moon and the tide," he answered.
"But hold!" he hastily added. "What, think you, could you and your
father do alone in England? And with me it were worse than alone. These
be dark times, when strangers have spies at their heels, and all
travellers are suspect."
"We will trust in God," she answered.
"Have you money?" he questioned--"for London, not for me," he added
hastily.
"Enough," she replied.
"The trust with the money is a weighty matter," he added; "but they
suffice not. You must have 'fending."
"There is no one," she answered sadly, "no one save--"
"Save the Seigneur of Rozel!" Buonespoir finished the sentence. "Good.
You to your father, and I to the Seigneur. If you can fetch your father
by your pot-of-honey tongue, I'll fetch the great Lempriere with
muscadella. Is't a bargain?"
"In which I gain all," she answered, and again touched his arm with her
finger-tips.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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