“No,” said the King, still fixing Denis with his eyes, and speaking to him as much as to the chamberlain. “He is my guest still, though his master is gone. See that you use him well.”
Chapter Forty Seven.
Francis is a King.
To have seen King Henry seated at his supper in that eventful year, and on one particular night, it would have been impossible to suppose that not many hours before he had been indulging in so fierce a storm of passion, such kingly rage, that not one of his most trusted courtiers and counsellors had dared approach for fear of consequences that might ensue.
It was the lion’s feeding time, and the food had evidently been good and satisfying. The music too in the minstrels’ gallery had been sweet and pleasant to the ear. The Court jester had for a wonder excelled himself in his strong endeavours to put the King in a good humour, and uttered no less than three samples of his wit which had made the King roar, inasmuch as in the tail of each joke there was a slightly poisoned sting which had gone home to the three noblemen for whom they were intended, my Lord Hurst, the King’s chamberlain, getting the worst dose.
There had been a good deal of whispered wonder running through the great dining chamber, especially below the salt, where the King’s gentlemen were seated who had for long been disappointed at the absence of royal favour and promotion they had been hoping for since they came to offer their services at Court; and though all who were well within the scan of his Majesty’s eyes spoke softly and with a stereotyped Court smile upon their countenances, they said more bitter things by far than any that had been uttered by the King’s jester, their remarks being dipped in envy, as they asked one another whether this French boy to whom the King was showing such favour—this French champignon, “impudent young upstart”—was to be the new favourite now, and one and all said to themselves that which was too dangerous to confide to another, that the King must have gone a little mad over the fit he had on discovering the loss of his favourite jewel, which had been carried off—so rumour said—by the so-called French Ambassador. This, joined to the second escape, must have turned the royal brain; otherwise he would never have displayed such sudden favour to one who had played so daring a prank as the impersonation of the wounded man.
But all the same this great favour had been shown, and there was the young upstart of an esquire seated on the King’s left, where all through the evening he had been the recipient of the greater part of the royal conversation, responding in French, with a little English which made the King roar, and encouraged him to continue his rather lame efforts at English conversation with an accent that could be called nothing better than vile.
The evening had passed away, and, wearied out at last, the King himself had relieved his feelings with more than one unroyal yawn—signals these of the time approaching when the gentlemen of the bedchamber would have to be in attendance, and another of the Court days be at an end.