United States or Palau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Have you given thought to the matter of Captain d'Aubran?" he asked, his voice an impatient snarl. "Yes, monsieur, I have pondered it all morning." "Well? And what have you concluded?" "Helas! monsieur, nothing." Tressan smote the table before him a blow that shook some of the dust out of the papers that cumbered it. "Ventregris! How am I served?
On the stairs they met Captain d'Aubran, who was descending. The captain was not in the best of humours. For four-and-twenty hours he had kept two hundred of his men under arms, ready to march as soon as he should receive his orders from the Lord Seneschal, yet those instructions were not forthcoming. He had been to seek them again that morning, only to be again put off.
Babylas will give you a letter to the authorities, charging them to find you suitable quarters. While there, d'Aubran, and until my further orders reach you, you will employ your time in probing the feeling in the hill district. You understand?" "Imperfectly," d'Aubran confessed. "You will understand better when you have been in Montelimar a week or so. It may, of course, be a false alarm.
He called for lights and Babylas. Both came, and he dispatched the lackey that lighted the tapers to summon Monsieur d'Aubran, the commander of the garrison of Grenoble. In the interval before the soldier's coming he conferred with Babylas concerning what he had in mind, but he found his secretary singularly dull and unimaginative. So that, perforce, he must fall back upon himself.
It sounded so very much as if the Seneschal's words really had some hidden meaning, that d'Aubran, if not content with going upon an errand of which he knew so little, was, at least, reconciled to obey the orders he received.
By morning, too, Tressan found that the intervening space of the night, since he had seen Madame de Condillac, had cooled his ardour very considerably. He had reached the incipient stages of regret of his rash promise. When Captain d'Aubran was announced to him, he bade them ask him to come again in an hour's time.
"Is there trouble, monsieur?" inquired the captain, startled. "Maybe there is, maybe there is not," returned the Seneschal mysteriously. "You shall have your full orders in the morning. Meanwhile, make ready to repair to the neighbourhood of Montelimar to-morrow with a couple of hundred men." "A couple of hundred, monsieur!" exclaimed d'Aubran. "But that will be to empty Grenoble of soldiers."
As Captain d'Aubran and his troop were speeding westwards from Grenoble, Monsieur de Garnache, ever attended by his man, rode briskly in the opposite direction, towards the grey towers of Condillac, that reared themselves towards the greyer sky above the valley of the Isere.
He passed his handkerchief for the last time over face and head, and resumed his wig. When d'Aubran entered, the Seneschal was composed and in his wonted habit of ponderous dignity. "Ah, d'Aubran," said he, "your men are ready?" "They have been ready these four-and-twenty hours, monsieur." "Good. You are a brisk soldier, d'Aubran. You are a man to be relied upon." D'Aubran bowed.
Mystified, Monsieur d'Aubran departed on his errand, and my Lord Seneschal went down to supper well pleased with the cunning device by which he was to leave Grenoble without a garrison. It was an astute way of escape from the awkward situation into which his attachment to the interests of the dowager of Condillac was likely to place him.
Word Of The Day