“He must die,” answered Louis in the same tone, “dead men tell no tales.”
One instant afterwards, Tristan l'Hermite, to whom Oliver had given the hint, stepped forward before the King and the Duke, and said, in his blunt manner, “So please your Majesty and your Grace, this piece of game is mine, and I claim him—he is marked with my stamp—the fleur de lis is branded on his shoulder, as all men may see.—He is a known villain, and hath slain the King's subjects, robbed churches, deflowered virgins, slain deer in the royal parks—”
“Enough, enough,” said Duke Charles, “he is my royal cousin's property by many a good title. What will your Majesty do with him?”
“If he is left to my disposal,” said the King, “I will at least give him one lesson in the science of heraldry, in which he is so ignorant—only explain to him practically the meaning of a cross potence, with a noose dangling proper.”
“Not as to be by him borne, but as to bear him.—Let him take the degrees under your gossip Tristan—he is a deep professor in such mysteries.”
Thus answered the Duke, with a burst of discordant laughter at his own wit, which was so cordially chorused by Louis that his rival could not help looking kindly at him, while he said, “Ah, Louis, Louis! would to God thou wert as faithful a monarch as thou art a merry companion!—I cannot but think often on the jovial time we used to spend together.”
“You may bring it back when you will,” said Louis; “I will grant you as fair terms as for very shame's sake you ought to ask in my present condition, without making yourself the fable of Christendom; and I will swear to observe them upon the holy relique which I have ever the grace to bear about my person, being a fragment of the true cross.”
Here he took a small golden reliquary, which was suspended from his neck next to his shirt by a chain of the same metal, and having kissed it devoutly, continued—“Never was false oath sworn on this most sacred relique, but it was avenged within the year.”
“Yet,” said the Duke, “it was the same on which you swore amity to me when you left Burgundy, and shortly after sent the Bastard of Rubempre to murder or kidnap me.”
“Nay, gracious cousin, now you are ripping up ancient grievances,” said the King. “I promise you, that you were deceived in that matter.—Moreover, it was not upon this relique which I then swore, but upon another fragment of the true cross which I got from the Grand Seignior, weakened in virtue, doubtless, by sojourning with infidels. Besides, did not the war of the Public Good break out within the year; and was not a Burgundian army encamped at Saint Denis, backed by all the great feudatories of France; and was I not obliged to yield up Normandy to my brother?—O God, shield us from perjury on such a warrant as this!”