Johnnie bowed very low. This was extraordinary favour. He knew, of course, that the King would never tilt with him, but he recognised the compliment.
He knew, again, that his star was high in the ascendant. The son of the great Charles V was reserved, cautious, suspicious of all men—except when, in private, he would unbend to buffoons and vulgar rascals like Sir John Shelton—and the icy gravity of his deportment to courtiers seldom varied.
Commendone was quite aware that the King did not class him with men of Shelton's stamp. He was the more signally honoured therefore.
"This night," His Grace continued, "after the jousts, your attendance will be excused, Señor. I retire early to rest."
The Esquire bowed, but he had caught a certain gleam in the King's small eyes. "Duck Lane or Bankside!" he thought to himself. "Thank God he hath not commanded me to be with him."
Johnnie was beginning to understand, more than he had hitherto done, something of his sudden rise to favour and almost intimacy. The King Consort was trying him, testing him in every way, hoping to find at length a companion less dangerous and drunken, a reputation less blown upon, a servant more discreet....
He could have spat in his disgust. What he had tolerated in others before, though loftily repudiated for himself, now became utterly loathsome—in King or commoner, black and most foul.
The King wore a mask; Johnnie wore one also—there was finesse in the game between master and servant. And to-night the King would wear a literal mask, the "maschera," which Badovardo speaks of when he set down the frailties of this monarch for after generations to read of: "Nelle piaceri delle donnè è incontinente, predendo dilletatione d'andare in maschera la notte et nei tempi de negotii gravi."
Then and there Johnnie made a resolution, one which had been nascent in his mind for many hours. He would have done with the Court as soon as may be. Ambition, so new a child of his brain, was already dead. He would marry, retire from pageant and splendour even as his father had done years and years ago. With Elizabeth by his side he would once more live happily among the woods and wolds of Commendone.
Torromé, the criado or valet, came into the room again from the bed-chamber. His Highness was to change his clothes once more—at high noon he must be with the Queen upon State affairs. The Chancellor and Lord Wharton were coming, and with them Brookes, the Bishop of Gloucester, the papal sub-delegate, and the Royal Proctors, Mr. Martin and Mr. Storey.