Be all this as it may, we were lodged in the palace of the King, and that evening attended a great entertainment. There were ladies royal and beautiful; gallant and noble gentlemen, illustrious in war and the polite arts; also there was a noise of loud music.
In my condition of marquis—I knew not how to disclaim that degree without showing myself deficient in breeding—and honourable envoy to a princess, I was seated at the table of the King of France. Upon either hand were ladies of the blood-royal. If I may venture to be quite candid in this matter—and if I am not my history will have no value, yet I hope such frankness will have no appearance of discourtesy to the household of a king—neither of these ladies was in the blush of youth, nor was she amazingly beautiful. On the score of their wit perhaps I may be excused from speaking; for as they had no Spanish and I had no French, our conversation was not so brilliant as some at the table.
Opposite to me sat the Count of Nullepart, or, as he was now called, the Marquis Fulano, a very singular title for a hidalgo of Spain. His circumstances appeared to be identical with my own. He also was encompassed by two royal princesses, one of whom had not a tooth—Heaven defend me for this candour!—and looked hardly a day less than ninety; while the other had an unfortunate malformation of the shoulders and a pair of eyes which glittered like those of a goshawk. As the Count of Nullepart insisted on speaking a rustic Spanish in a guttural voice that was quite foreign to his natural one, and as these royal ladies confined themselves to their mother tongue, the Count of Nullepart’s intercourse must have ranked next to my own. Yet, if the cheerful mirth of his countenance was a true index to his feelings upon the subject, his disappointment could not have galled him very deeply.
In the course of that evening it was freely rumoured that the Marquis Fulano was none other than a near kinsman—some said the second son—of the King of France. Indeed, the laughter that his appearance and behaviour excited, and yet the high respect that was paid to them on every hand, was such as could never have been extended to the idiosyncrasies of a private person. From that hour to this neither Sir Richard Pendragon nor myself has ever been able to win such an amazing admission from the Count of Nullepart. But as he has never thought well in anywise to deny it, and as the demeanour of all at the French court was such as I have declared it to be, there is every reason to suppose that our comrade’s true degree was of this exalted nature.
Sir Richard Pendragon was also in very singular case. Will you believe me, reader, when I inform you that this swaggerer, this maltreater of the truth, this robber of churches, this uncouth barbarian, had the King of France upon his left hand and the Queen upon his right? And so little was this ready-tongued adventurer abashed by the exalted position in which he found himself, that from the beginning of the meal he held the King in discourse, and handsomely retained the royal interest until it was concluded.
What it was that Sir Richard Pendragon found to say to the Father of his People I know not. But if his conversation was inspired by the same disrespect for the sober verities as had distinguished it earlier in the day, I doubt not that the King’s majesty learned much that the wisest of his ministers had not dreamed that he should know.
Much of this mad Englishman’s discourse was comprised of fantasy and comic tales. By the time he had consumed a liberal quantity of wine, which to a less commodious nature must have been a source of inconvenience, he kept the good King Louis in a perpetual state of laughter. It was the same with his royal consort. Indeed, grievous to relate, the Count of Nullepart subsequently made the accusation against Sir Richard Pendragon that he was the only person of his acquaintancy at the French court who was capable of bringing the blush of modesty to the cheek of the Queen-Mother.
In despite of this, Sir Richard Pendragon had great success on that memorable evening; and I think he was the envy of more than one ambitious courtier who had spent his life in flattering princes. Certainly no man could have been in a situation to admire himself more, and certainly no man could have been better equipped by nature to render to himself that office.
Owing to the manner in which fortune had smiled that evening upon our leader, he awaited the King’s decision with the greatest complacency. He assured the Count of Nullepart “that by the inner light of the mind he saw himself already at the head of those ten thousand Gauls.” And further, having once seen himself in the place of a great captain, by an additional process of the imagination which I believe is a curious quality in which his countrymen are highly gifted, he saw himself as the future king of the Spains.
After his success at the King’s board, Sir Richard invaded my sleeping-chamber that night in the palace, and regaled me until the dawn with the bright future that lay before us. Once the King of France gave over ten thousand men to his leadership, he showed in what manner he, Richard Pendragon, knight of England, with the blood of kings under his doublet, would crush the proud Castilian by the virtue of deep strategy and the power of the understanding.