Part 43 (2/2)
You can sing like an angel!”
”Well,” laughed Laurence in reply, ”I would be indeed content, if he be a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eat and drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of so profitless a servant as yourself?”
”I am the poor gentleman Gilles de Sille of the household of the Marshal de Retz!” answered the swarthy youth, readily.
”De Silly indeed to bide with such a master!” quoth Laurence, with his usual prompt heedlessness of consequences.
The sallow youth with his bandaged head did not understand the poor jest, but, taking offence at the tone, he instantly reared himself on his elbow and darted a look at Laurence from under brows so lowering and searching that Laurence fell back in mock terror.
”Nay,” he cried, shaking at the knees and letting his hands swing ludicrously by his sides, ”do not affright a poor clerk! If you look at me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall to protect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on the other side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service again with the Marshal de Retz.”
”What know you of my master?” reiterated Gilles de Sille, glowering at his mercurial jailer, without heeding his persiflage.
”Why, nothing at all,” said Laurence, truthfully, ”except that while we stood listening to the singing of the choir within his hotel, a poor woman came crying for her son, whom (so she declared) the marshal had kidnapped. Whereat came forth the guard from within, and thrust her away. Then arrived you and your varlets and got your heads broken for your impudence. That is all I know or want to know of your master.”
Gilles de Sille lay back on his pallet with a sigh, still, however, continuing to watch the lad's countenance.
”You should indeed take service with the marshal. He is the most lavish and generous master alive. He thinks no more of giving a handful of gold pieces to a youth with whom he is taken than of throwing a crust to a beggar at his gate. He owns the finest province in all the west from side to side. He has castles well nigh a dozen, finer and stronger than any in France. He has a college of priests, and the service at his oratory is more n.o.bly intoned than that in the private chapel of the Holy Father himself. When he goes in procession he has a thurifer carried before him by the Pope's special permission.
And I tell you, you are just the lad to take his fancy. That I can see at a glance. I warrant you, Master Laurence, if you will come with me, the marshal will make your fortune.”
”Did the other young fellow make his fortune?” said Laurence. Gilles de Sille glared as if he could have slain him.
”What other?” he growled, truculently.
”Why, the son of the poor woman who cried beneath your kind master's window the night before yestreen'.”
The lank swarthy youth ground his teeth.
”'Tis ill speaking against dignities,” he replied presently, with a certain sullen pride. ”I daresay the young fellow took service with the marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, or mayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at some lattice of the Hotel de p.o.r.nic itself to the idiot clamour of his mother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!”
”Your master loves the society of the young?” queried Laurence, mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of the catgut in his mouth as he spoke.
”He doats on all young people,” answered Gilles de Sille, eagerly, the flicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp.
”Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!”
Which in its way was a true enough statement.
”Well,” quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string and finished c.o.c.king his viol and twingle-tw.a.n.gling it to his satisfaction, ”you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think of it. I am tired both of working for my father without pay, and of singing psalms in a monastery to please my lord Abbot. Moreover, in this city of Paris I have to tell every jack with a halbert that I am not the son of the King of England, and then after all as like as not he marches me to the bilboes!”
”Of what nativity are you?” asked de Sille.
”Och, I'm all of a rank Irelander, and my name is Laurence O'Halloran, at your service,” quoth the rogue, without a blush. For among other accomplishments which he had learned at the Abbey of Dulce Cor, was that of lying with the serene countenance of an angel. Indeed, as we have seen, he had the rudiments of the art in him before setting out from the tourneying field at Glenlochar on his way to holy orders.
”Then you will come with me to-morrow?” said Gilles, smiling.
Laurence listened to make sure that neither his father nor Sholto was approaching the garret.
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