Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/29

Rh “In the palace?” he muttered. “Is it to be done here, too, sire?”

“Would you let some escape, to return by-and-by and cut our throats?” the King retorted, with a strange spirt of fury; an incapacity to maintain the same attitude of mind for two minutes together was the most fatal weakness of his ill-balanced nature. “No. All! All!” he repeated with vehemence. “Didn’t Noah people the earth with eight? But I’ll not leave eight! My cousins, for they are blood-royal, shall live if they will recant. And my old nurse, whether or no. And Paré, for no one else understands my complexion. And”

“And Rochefoucauld, doubtless, sire?”

The King, whose eye had sought his favourite companion, withdrew it. He darted a glance at Tavannes.

“Foucauld? Who said so?” he muttered jealously. “Not I! But we shall see. We shall see! And do you see that you spare no one, M. le Comte, without an order. That is your business.”

“I understand, sire,” Tavannes answered coolly. And after a moment’s silence, seeing that the King had done with him, he bowed low and withdrew; watched by the circle, as all about a King were watched in the days when a King’s breath meant life or death, and his smile made the fortunes of men. As he passed Rochefoucauld, the latter looked up and nodded.

“What keeps brother Charles?” he muttered. “He’s madder than ever to-night. Is it a masque or a murder he is planning?”

“The vapours,” Tavannes answered, with a sneer. “Old tales his old nurse has stuffed him withal. He’ll come by-and-by, and ’twill be well if you can divert him.”

“I will, if he come,” Rochefoucauld answered, shuffling the cards. “If not ’tis Chicot’s business, and he should attend to it. I’m tired, and shall to bed.”