In a Dark Wood Wandering Read Online Free Page B

feet.
    â€œAdieu, Valentine.” He pressed her cold fingers. “You should sleep well now.” He stepped easily from the dais, tossed his right sleeve over his shoulder, saluted the women and left the room.
    The Duchess beckoned. The Dame de Maucouvent came quickly forward and removed the heavy crown from her head.
    Louis d’Orléans went directly to the armory, a room adjacent to the library. That portion of the palace of Saint-Pol which he and his household occupied was no less sumptuous and was, in fact, more elegantly furnished than the apartments of the royal family. The armory reflected, in a small way, the opulence with which the Duke liked to surround himself. A Flemish tapestry depicting the crowning of Our Lady covered two walls with the colors of semiprecious stones: dull green, rust red and the dark yellow of old amber. Facing the arched window hung racks of Louis’ weapon collection: daggers with wrought-gold sheaths, swords from Lyon, Saracen blades, the hilts engraved with heraldic devices and set with gems, the scabbards covered with gold and enamel.
    Three men stood talking before the fire; they turned when Louis entered. They were Marshal Boucicaut and Messires Mahieu de Moras and Jean de Bueil, noblemen of the Duke’s retinue with whom he was on very friendly terms. They bowed and came toward him.
    â€œWell, gentlemen,” Louis said; he flung his gloves onto a chest. “You were able to see the King today.”
    De Bueil strode to a table where there were some tankards and goblets of chased silver—part of Valentine’s dowry—and at a nod from the Duke poured out wine.
    â€œThe King is undoubtedly mad,” said de Moras, fixing his eyes upon Louis with a trace of a smile on his heavily scarred face. “To whom do you want us to drink, Monseigneur?”
    â€œTo the King—that goes without saying.” Louis sat down and raised the goblet to his lips with both hands. “I don’t want you to misinterpret my words—not for anything.”
    â€œMonseigneur of Burgundy is not present,” said Jean de Bueil with a significant look. Louis frowned.
    â€œI’ve noticed that seems to make little difference,” he remarked,sipping the wine slowly. “My uncle hears everything, even things which I never said and which I never had any intention of saying. Things which I don’t even
think,
” he added. “For Monseigneur of Burgundy, Satan himself couldn’t be any more evil than I.” He began to laugh and set the beaker down.
    â€œIt’s a good thing that he can’t hear you speak so lightly of the Enemy,” said de Moras. “I doubt that would help your reputation much—in the inns and the marketplace …”
    â€œI’ve heard it said that men suspect you of sorcery, my lord,” said Jean de Bueil; at Louis’ nod he refilled the goblets. “You have brought astrologers from Lombardy …”
    Louis interrupted him with a gesture. “I know that. Don’t they say too that my father-in-law, the Lord of Milan, has signed a pact with the Devil? The learned gentlemen of the Sorbonne are behind this; they hate me so much that they would even learn sorcery if with that they could cause me to vanish from the earth. My father-in-law is anything but pious, and perhaps he does know more about the Devil than is good for him. But I vastly prefer him to the bellowing clerics who can only expel wind.”
    Marshal Boucicaut looked up quickly. “Monseigneur,” he said earnestly, “talk like that can give rise to misunderstanding. Everyone who knows you knows that you are a devout Christian.”
    â€œYou are not abreast of the times,” Louis said sarcastically. “If you were, you would know that things are not what they appear to be. Do you know what the common people call the chapel of Orléans? The Monument to Misrule’ …
my
misrule, do you