In a Dark Wood Wandering Read Online Free PDF Page A

understand? Building it was the penalty I paid for my sins. And don’t forget above all that this spring I set fire to the King—to say nothing of the six noble gentlemen who did not come off as well as he did.”
    â€œYou can mock, Monseigneur,” said Boucicaut coolly, “because you know that with us your words are in safekeeping. But you must remember as well as I do how the people behaved the day after the unfortunate accident.”
    â€œThey came by the hundreds to Saint-Pol to see the King himself and to curse us,” Louis said, the ironic smile still on his lips. “They would have torn the Duchess and me to pieces if a single hair on his head had been scorched. The people think a great deal of the King.”
    â€œThey would think as much of you if only they knew you,” Jean de Bueil said staunchly. Louis stood up.
    â€œYou ought to concern yourself with reaching a good understanding with the people of Paris, my lord,” Boucicaut said in a low voice. “You will become regent if the King dies.”
    Louis turned quickly and stared at the three men, his hands on his hips. “If the King dies, indeed,” he said finally. “May God grant the King a long and healthy life.”
    He walked to a window and stood looking out, his back to the others. Beneath the windows in this part of the palace was an enclosed garden with a marble fountain in the middle, surrounded by galleries. The trees, to which a single half-shrivelled red leaf still clung here and there, loomed mournfully through the autumn mist. The turrets and battlements of the palace walls were barely visible on the other side of the courtyard. The Duke turned. The three young noblemen still stood near the table.
    â€œYou’re right, Messires. I joke too much,” Louis said. “And I must certainly not make jokes about such worthy gentlemen as the doctors of the Sorbonne. And now enough of these things.”
    He took a lute from one of the tables and handed it to Jean de Bueil. “Play that song of Bernard de Ventadour’s,” he said, sitting down. In a clear voice de Bueil began to sing:
    Quan la doss aura venta
    Deves vostre pais
    M’es veiare que senta
    Odor de Paradis …
    Two servants entered the room; the arms of Orléans were embroidered on the cloth over their breasts. One of them began to light the torches along the wall; the other approached the Duke and stood hesitantly before him because Louis sat listening to the song with closed eyes. Jean de Bueil ended the couplet with a flourish of chords; the Duke of Orléans opened his eyes and asked, “Why have you stopped, de Bueil?” Then he noticed the servant. “Well?” he asked impatiently.
    The man slipped onto one knee and whispered something. The peevish expression vanished from Louis’ face; he smiled at the servant absently, absorbed in thought. Finally he snapped his fingers as a sign that the man could go and rose, stretching, as though to shake off every trace of lassitude. “Forgive me, gentlemen,” he said. “I am needed elsewhere.” He saluted them and walked swiftly to disappearbehind a tapestry where the servant held a hidden door open for him.
    De Bueil took up the lute again and softly played the melody of the song he had just sung. “Things are allotted queerly in this world,” he remarked, without looking up from the strings. “The King is a child who plays with sugar candy. And Monseigneur d’Orléans deserves a better plaything than a ducal crown. We are not the only ones who think so.”
    Boucicaut frowned and rose to leave. “But it’s to be hoped that everyone who thinks so is sensible enough to keep quiet about it for the time being,” he said curtly. De Moras was about to follow him; he turned toward the young man with the lute.
    â€œDon’t worry about it, de Bueil,” he said. “No man escapes his destiny.”
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