The First Sir Percy by Baroness Orczy (which ebook reader TXT) ๐
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Set a mere three months after The Laughing Cavalier, the titular first Sir Percy is set to wed his love Gilda in a double wedding with her brother and his intended. The attendees include many of the rich and famous, including the Stadtholder himself. But immediately after the ceremony, bad news arrives, and Percy, A.K.A. Diogenes, is tasked with rushing to get messages to two of the Stadtholderโs divisions that are in peril from the enemy. But there are unknown enemies about as well as known ones, and Diogenes will soon face the darkest hours and direst threats of his young life.
In the seventh entry in the series, Baroness Orczy returns again to early seventeenth-century Netherlands, but with a darker tone than The Laughing Cavalier. This time she turns her focus to the antagonist and his henchmen, and once again puts her hero in an untenable position. This time the nationโs life is at stake, as well as his own.
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- Author: Baroness Orczy
Read book online ยซThe First Sir Percy by Baroness Orczy (which ebook reader TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Baroness Orczy
Jan laughed derisively. The men laughed openly. They thought this but another excellent joke on the part of the droll fellow.
โBah!โ Jan said, with a shrug of the shoulder. โHow should a varlet like thee know aught of which his lordship hath not full cognisance already?โ
โHis lordship,โ the other riposted quickly, even whilst a look of impish cunning overspread his faceโ โโhis lordship never was in the confidence of the Stadtholder. I was!โ
โWhat hath the Stadtholder to do with the matter?โ
โOh, nothing, nothing!โ the blind man replied airily. โThou art obstinate, my good Jan, and โtis not I who would force thee to share a secret for the possession of which, let me assure thee, his lordship would repay me not only with a tankard of his best wine, but with my life! Ay, and with a yearly pension of one thousand guilders to boot.โ
These last few words he had spoken quite slowly and with grave deliberation, his head nodding sagely while he spoke. The look of cunning in those spectral orbs had lent to his pale, wan face an air of elfin ghoulishness. He was swaying on his feet, and now and again the men had to hold him up, for he was on the very point of measuring his length on the hall floor.
Jan did not know what to make of it all. Obviously the man was drunk. But not so drunk that he did not know what he was talking about. And the air of cunning suggested that there was something alive in the fuddled brain. Jan looked across the hall in the direction of the banqueting-room.
The doors were wide open, and he could see that his lordship, who at first had paced up and down the long room like a caged beast, had paused quite close to the door, then advanced on tiptoe out into the hall, where he had remained for the last minute or two, intent and still, with eager, probing glance fixed upon the blind man. Now, when Jan questioned him with a look, he gave his faithful henchman a scarce perceptible sign, which the latter was quick enough to interpret correctly.
โThou dost set my mouth to water,โ he said to the blind man, with well-assumed carelessness, โby all this talk of yearly pensions and of guilders. I am a poor man, and not so young as I was. A thousand guilders a year would keep me in comfort for the rest of my life.โ
โYet art so obstinate,โ Diogenes riposted with a quaint, inane laugh, โas to deny me a tankard of Spanish wine, which might put thee in possession of my secretโ โa secret, good Jan, worth yearly pensions and more to his lordship.โ
โHow do I know thouโrt not a consummate liar?โ Jan protested gruffly.
โI am!โ the other riposted, wholly unruffled. โI am! Lying hath been my chief trade ever since I was breeched. Had I not lied to the Stadtholder he would not have entrusted his secrets to me, and I could not have bartered those secrets for a tankard of good Spanish wine.โ
โThy vaunted secrets may not be worth a tankard of wine.โ
โThey are, friend Jan, they are! Try them and see.โ
โWell, letโs hear them and, if they are worth it, Iโll pay thee with a tankard of his lordshipโs best Oporto.โ
But the blind man shook his head with owlish solemnity.
โAnd then sell them to his lordship,โ he retorted, โfor pensions and whatnot, whilst thine own hand, mayhap, puts the rope around my neck. No, no, my good Jan, say no more about it. Iโd as lief see his lordship and thee falling into the Stadtholderโs carefully laid trap, and getting murdered in your beds, even while I am on my journey to kingdom come.โ
โWho is going to murder us?โ Jan queried, frowning and puzzled, trying to get his cue once more from his master. โAnd how?โ
โIโll not tell thee,โ the blind man replied, with a quick turn to that obstinacy which so oft pertains to the drunkard, โnot if thou wert to plunge me in a bath of best Oporto.โ
Some of the men began to murmur.
โWe might all share?โ one or two of them suggested.
โLetโs hear what it is,โ others declared.
โIโll tell thee, knave, what Iโll do,โ Jan rejoined decisively. โIโll bring thee a tankard of Oporto to loosen thy tongue. Then, if thy secret is indeed as important as thou dost pretend, Iโll see that the hangman is cheated of thy carcass.โ
For awhile the blind man pondered.
โLoosen my hands then, friend Jan,โ he said, โfor, in truth, I am trussed like a fowl; then letโs feel the handle of that tankard. After that weโll talk.โ
IVThe soldiers sat around the table, watching the blind man with grave attention. At a sign from Jan they soon loosened his bonds. There was something magnetic in the air just then, something that sent sensitive nerves aquiver, and of which these rough fellow were only vaguely conscious. They could not look on that drunken loon without laughing. He was more comical than ever now, with that air of bland beatitude upon his face as his slender fingers closed around the handle of the tankard which Jan had just placed in his hand.
โI would sell my soul for a butt of this nectar,โ he said; and drank in the odour of the wine with every sign of delight, even before he raised the tankard to his lips.
The Lord of Stoutenburg watched the blind man, too. A deep furrow between his brows testified to the earnest concentration of his thoughts. The man knew something, or thought he knew, of that his lordship could not be in doubt. The question was, was that knowledge of such importance as the miserable wretch averred, or was he merely, like any rogue who sees the rope dangling before his eyes, trying to gain a respite, by proposing vain bargains or selling secrets that had only found birth in his own fuddled brain. Stoutenburg, remember, was no
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