“It is for Your Majesty to decide.”
“For me?” he cried, his voice resuming the harshness that was never far from it. “I have a fancy for having gentlemen about me. Think you I will set eyes again upon that dastard? I am already resolved concerning him, but it entered my mind that it might please you to be the instrument of the law for me.”
“Me, Sire?”
“Aye, and why not? They say you can play a very deadly sword upon necessity. This is an occasion that demands an exception from our edict. You have my sanction to send the Comte de Chatellerault a challenge. And see that you kill him, Bardelys!” he continued viciously. “For, by the Mass, if you don't, I will! If he escapes your sword, or if he survives such hurt as you may do him, the headsman shall have him. Mordieu! is it for nothing that I am called Louis the Just?”
I stood in thought for a moment. Then—
“If I do this thing, Sire,” I ventured, “the world will say of me that I did so to escape the payment I had incurred.”
“Fool, you have not incurred it. When a man cheats, does he not forfeit all his rights?”
“That is very true. But the world—”
“Peste!” he snapped impatiently, “you are beginning to weary me, Marcel—and all the world does that so excellently that it needs not your collaboration. Go your ways, man, and do as you elect. But take my sanction to slay this fellow Chatellerault, and I shall be the better pleased if you avail yourself of it. He is lodged at the Auberge Royale, where probably you will find him at present. Now, go. I have more justice to dispense in this rebellious province.”
I paused a moment.