The Queen looked sharply at him, then burst out laughing.
“God’s life, but here’s a bull making epigrams!” she said. Then her humour changed. “See you, my butler of Rozel, you shall speak the truth, or I’ll have you where that jerkin will fit you not so well a month hence. Plain answers I will have to plain questions, or De Carteret of St. Ouen’s shall have his will of you and your precious pirate. So bear yourself as you would save your head and your honours.”
Lempriere of Rozel never had a better moment than when he met the Queen of England’s threats with faultless intrepidity. “I am concerned about my head, but more about my honours, and most about my honour,” he replied. “My head is my own, my honours are my family’s, for which I would give my head when needed; and my honour defends both until both are naught—and all are in the service of my Queen.”
Smiling, Elizabeth suddenly leaned forward, and, with a glance of satisfaction towards the Duke’s Daughter, who was present, said:
“I had not thought to find so much logic behind your rampant skull,” she said. “You’ve spoken well, Rozel, and you shall speak by the book to the end, if you will save your friends. What concern is it of yours whether Michel de la Foret live or die?”
“It is a concern of one whom I’ve sworn to befriend, and that is my concern, your ineffable Majesty.” “Who is the friend?”
“Mademoiselle Aubert.”
“The betrothed of this Michel de la Foret?”
“Even so, your exalted Majesty. But I made sure De la Foret was dead when I asked her to be my wife.”
“Lord, Lord, Lord, hear this vast infant, this hulking baby of a Seigneur, this primeval innocence! Listen to him, cousin,” said the Queen, turning again to the Duke’s Daughter. “Was ever the like of it in any kingdom of this earth? He chooses a penniless exile—he, a butler to the Queen, with three dove-cotes and the perquage—and a Huguenot withal. He is refused; then comes the absent lover over sea, to shipwreck; and our Seigneur rescues him, ‘fends him; and when yon master exile is in peril, defies his Queen’s commands”—she tapped the papers lying beside her on the table—“then comes to England with the lady to plead the case before his outraged sovereign, with an outlawed buccaneer for comrade and lieutenant. There is the case, is’t not?”