“Why, you mad Iberian varlet,” cried the Englishman, “do you deny the address of a right Pendragon to outface the dangers of the way?”
“Good Sir Richard Pendragon,” I replied, “I do not question your address. It is because it is so great that I would not expose it to the accidents of travel. Madam never was in need of such notable service; you are her most notable servant; therefore I would humbly submit that you continue to sit with her in council, and devise a proper plan of war, while one who is less in mother-wit and masterful consideration embraces the perils of the road.”
Sir Richard Pendragon was well pleased with words so caressing to his self-esteem.
“This,” said he, “is good speaking for a Spaniard; and as I am a true man and a man addicted to high policy, I commend you, Don Miguel, for you have spoken well. But this embassy to the good France is an affair of moment. It touches one of the first princes of his age; and as he is one of the few at present living in Europe and Asia that one who hath grown old in the love of virtue hath not met, that true mind and honest mettle claims to conduct these negotiations by right of consanguinity.”
I know not how long we sat in council, each advancing his several claims to serve our mistress in this particular; and she, good soul and very woman, conferred no harmony upon our board. It pleased her well that her three servants should display this zeal to make trial of their merit; and though her mien declared that she was fain to consider each to be worthy, yet which of her sex will be content with one when three contend to do her service?
And so, when we were weary with our contention, and that momentous day began to wane, we reconciled our rivalry in the only natural and possible manner. As not one of us would yield his claims, and as each was equally worthy in his own opinion, and equally eligible in that of our mistress, it was proposed by the Count of Nullepart, in that agreeable fashion that none knew how to resist, that the three of us should brave the perils of the road together. And at last, reluctantly, and each with a glance at the other, we gave our assent; whereupon madam, without any reluctance at all, gave hers with the gravest dignity.
Even when we had conducted our negotiations to this issue, there was one other matter to come between us and harmony. To whom was the folio to be entrusted? In this, however, Sir Richard Pendragon showed a measure of arbitrariness that was only to be deplored. He took the signed and sealed document from off the council board, saying that, “by right of consanguinity,” he claimed the prerogative of presenting it to the good France; and that “if either Mounseer or little Don What-did-he-call-himself questioned that right, let him be good enough to pluck these letters of marque from a doublet that enclosed the blood of kings.”
CHAPTER XX
OF OUR ROAD TO PARIS
The sun had scarce begun to creep from behind his white curtain when, on the following day, madam’s three ministers set forth on their embassy. The road to Paris was more than an hundred leagues. The first part of it lay through the very heart of Castile; much of it was difficult and beset with peril for the traveller, and particularly for those upon such a service as ours. Yet upon this beautiful morning of midsummer, as we rode forth from the castle down the steep winding track, these jealous servants of a noble mistress gave not a thought to the dangers that might befall.
As we took the road our chief concern was to come to King Louis at Paris with all expedition, and to return again with all the speed possible in the company of an armed host, that the designs of the Castilian might be thwarted. With madam’s high courage and a tolerable address on the part of her garrison, her fastness might be held against an enemy until our return. Yet we felt that every hour was of price, and that there was not one to lose.