Chapter 12
In which Mascarpone is unfairly tempted while the others enjoy a quite game of cards.
Amarilla was very worried. She knew that the ‘document’ referred to by Bull could only be one of the letters that her Uncle had sent to Beowulf to enlist his help in rescuing Louis. She was sure that it would not be written in plain language, however she did not rate the Marshall’s skills as a master of intrigue highly enough to believe that his letter would not lead to his incrimination. She needed to stop Mascarpone retrieving the evidence.
Gently, she pulled Emsie’s sleeve and nodded to the corridor. Both girl’s quietly left the gambling room and went into the corridor.
‘Amarilla, Amarilla, I am still here,’ could still be faintly heard, emanating from the meat store.
‘Mascarpone must be stopped,’ said Amarilla, ‘the letter he is going to retrieve will make it obvious that my Uncle has conspired against the King. If we go out through the kitchen and across the courtyard then we can beat him to his quarters.’
‘That’s fine, but what then?’ asked Emsie, ‘there is a limit to my capacity for violence. Since I met you I’ve brained a diplomat with a frying pan and tripped an army officer into a cupboard, now you want me to mug a priest, are you sure this is ladylike?’
‘The role of women is changing for the better; but I don’t think we’ll need to hit the Cardinal as long as we get there in time. We’d better run.’
They ran.
Lewis was getting bored. He’d eaten quite a lot and then he’d drunk quite a lot. There wasn’t anything else for him to do, and he couldn’t understand what anybody was saying. They all seemed to be quite angry with each other and he couldn’t see how Beowulf, who seemed to be a prisoner, was going to make him the King of France. It was all very odd. At that moment he really missed being home on the farm. You knew where you were with sheep. He noticed that the serving girls had just gone out. He was worried that he really must have been drinking a lot, because the extremely dirty one looked just like Amarilla de Cassiones. He was sure it couldn’t have been her though; because she was going to marry the King of France. Now that was a good reason to be the King of France! He decided that he would just have to watch the stupid card game and try to figure out what was going on.
Henri the dealer shuffled the cards nervously; this was turning out to be an even tenser occasion than he had imagined. He was used to stress; gambling was, after all, that kind of a business: however this seemed to be a whole different level of unpleasantness. People were getting hurt. He wasn’t keen on that at all. He was just supposed to be dealing the King some good cards. That hadn’t been easy either; all the other players were cheating and he clearly wasn’t going to point out that a Cardinal or a General, or whoever they were, had cards up their sleeve. It could really end badly.
Now this little guy that they had all been beating up was going to play. Henri decided not to think about it and just deal.
He dealt the Ace, King, nine, seven and three of Hearts to Louie-Louie; the Jacks of clubs and spades, together with three low cards to Gney; he dealt Boo Dikka the Ace and King of Spades and the Ace of Diamonds as well as two low cards: Bull he gave three Queens, but not the Queen of Hearts; Dorf had decided his role was to advise, rather than play and Caractacus Carruthers was still talking (mostly to himself) and so Henri had ignored him; to Beowulf he dealt a hand of low, unrelated cards. Beowulf had suggested that his stake could be funded by the ‘assassination fund’ when it was finally proved who had provided it. Louie-Louie had agreed to this.
Louie-Louie, already holding a flush was very confident, but wanted to downplay his hand,
‘Fifty crowns.’
‘Fifty,’ agreed Gney, helping himself to another Jack from his store of cards.
‘Aces are good, aren’t they?’ asked Boo innocently, ‘I’ll take fifty.’
‘One hundred,’ raised Bull, who was deciding whether to find a fourth queen, or a pair to make up a full house.
‘One hundred,’ agreed Beowulf, much to Henri’s surprise. ‘He must be cheating too!’ he thought.
All the players agreed with the Cardinal’s raise.
‘This game could get quite expensive,’ observed Caractacus, ‘I suppose it’s too late now to join in?’
Amarilla and Emsie had beaten the Cardinal to his room.
‘Find writing paper,’ Amarilla said, ‘and the letter!’
The girls began to search frantically through Mascarpone’s belongings.
Back in the gambling room, Henri had grown extremely nervous. He had dealt the King a winning hand, but the others were cheating. He realised that Louis was going to stick with his hand and, thinking he was winning, was going to lose a lot. He had a desperate idea.
‘I think that I’ll stick with what I’ve got,’ said Louis.
‘Three cards it is, Highness,’ said Henri, pretending that he had misheard.
‘No; I said-’ began Louis, but before he could complete his phrase Henri had ripped the three lower hearts from his hand and placed three new cards on the table.
‘As his Highness requests!’ said Henri in a low, fraught voice.
‘Hang on!’ said Louie-Louie.
‘What is happening,’ shouted Bull, ‘you, dealer! Your King did not request three cards, he wanted to stick. You need to be paying attention. Return the King’s cards at once.’
While Bull was shouting Louie-Louie had picked up the cards.
‘I don’t think so, Cardinal,’ said Louie-Louie, ‘I think I did say three!’
The rest of the table agreed, as people tend to do when the King has spoken.
‘Yes,’ said Louie-Louie, ‘it was definitely three! I think I’ll raise your hundred to two hundred, Cardinal.’
Henri had passed Louie-Louie the ten, Jack and Queen of hearts.
Amarilla had found some writing paper and had written something swiftly, while Emsie continued to search the room. She had not yet found where the Cardinal kept the letter.
‘Quickly,’ said Amarilla, joining the search, ‘he must be almost here.’
‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ said Emsie.
‘Try under the bed.’
Emsie had just dived under the bed, when the door creaked open and Mascarpone walked in.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Amarilla suspiciously.
Marshall Gney had grasped the significance of the dealer’ intervention and although he received a pair of nines to go with his pair of Jacks, potentially setting up a full house he knew that he was folding in response to Louie-Louie’s raise. Boo Dikka also folded her hand even though Henri had passed her the King of Diamonds to tempt her.
‘Your Grace must have a fine hand,’ she said.
‘It is quite promising,’ agreed Louis-Louis, while attempting to stay cool.
‘I’ll raise your two hundred to four hundred,’ said Cardinal Bull, who had palmed himself a pair of fives to give himself a full house. Sadly the Cardinal was a terribly rash gambler, who thought that he could win every hand. This had caused him some trouble in the past. Fortunately for him being on first name terms with someone who controlled access to the afterlife had allowed a number of impetuously acquired debts to be generously acquitted.
Beowulf, who had stuck with the very poor hand he had been dealt, smiled and said,
‘Four hundred it is. I think your majesty will be making me rich.’
Louie-Louie laughed, but Bull angrily interjected,
‘He’ll be making you dead, when that letter is brought!’
‘Cardinal Bull, let us not mix business with pleasure! I accept your bet, four hundred it is!’
‘The pot stands at one thousand four hundred crowns,’ said Henri a little shakily. He was very relieved to have got away with saving the King; but he was very worried about what Beowulf might be doing.
‘Good evening, Cardinal!’
Amarilla was sat on Mascarpone’s bed and attempting to look as alluri
ng as her current disguise allowed, ‘I’m surprised you are home so soon! I was expecting you later.’
Mascarpone’s drunken brain tried (optimistically) to evaluate the situation and then (realistically) decided just to accept it. There was an impossibly dirty serving girl sitting on his bed.
‘You are very dirty!’ he blurted out.
‘I was told that you liked a girl that way,’ countered Amarilla, ‘why don’t you sit down?’
Mascarpone sat on the bed, but then remembered.
‘I have to get a letter!’
He dropped to his knees and was about to look under the bed.
‘In a minute!’ said Amarilla, ‘we haven’t said “hello” yet.’
‘No time, no time,’ muttered Mascarpone.
‘Couldn’t you make some time?’ asked Amarilla.
‘Well, maybe.’ Mascarpone pulled himself up to be sitting on the bed again.
‘Got it!’ whispered Emsie from under the bed, she had found a small chest and it seemed to contain a number of letters.
‘You are really, really dirty!’ said Mascarpone who was now becoming distracted by Amarilla, ‘Is that gravy in your hair?’
Amarilla shuddered at the proximity of the deeply inebriated and progressively more amorous Cardinal. She quickly came to the conclusion that how ever good one’s cause; there were things that should not be done in pursuit of it.
‘You have forgotten your letter!’ she reminded him. He was about to look under the bed again when Emsie shoved the chest out. Either the Cardinal missed this action or believed that the universe was spontaneously helping him.
‘There it is!’ he said happily and bent to open the chest.