Beowulf, Bull and Louie-Louie all stuck with the cards in their hands for the third round of bidding. Louie-Louie was delighted with his good fortune (and entirely oblivious to the fact that it was not good fortune at all), Bull was anxious; although he felt that he had given himself a good enough hand to win. Beowulf seemed to be quite calm and detached. The remaining occupants of the gambling room were paying close attention as the pile of gold in the centre of the table grew; apart from Lewis, who was still bored of eating and drinking. He really wished that someone spoke English. When he was King of France, he vowed, everybody was going to speak English! While he was looking aimlessly around the room, he inadvertently made eye contact with Beowulf, who looked pointedly at the door that led to the kitchen. Lewis followed his gaze and then looked back. Beowulf nodded briskly. Lewis wondered what he meant.
‘I think it only fair to warn you that I have a rather good hand,’ said Louie-Louie, ‘and so I raise you all another four hundred.’
Unable to help himself, Bull glared at Louie-Louie. Catching himself being disrespectful he gave a small, fake chuckle,
‘That is what Your Grace said when we were gaming at Montpellier,’ he laughed.
‘And you folded most unwisely that day!’ smirked Louie-Louie. This angered Bull even further and he wanted to pursue the conversation retributively, however he realised that the card game at Montpellier had taken place when Louie-Louie was simply Louie-Louie and not pretending to be Louis, the King of France. He looked around shiftily, however there was no one in the room who could recognise this as a blunder as both Mascarpone and D’Orbergene, who had been at Montpellier, were absent.
‘This time I shall not fold,’ he said with confidence, ‘I will cover your four hundred and raise you a further four hundred.’
The Britons looked longingly at the vast pile of gold that now occupied the centre of the table. Then they looked at Beowulf.
He shrugged and said,
‘I haven’t got that kind of money on me; however I am sure that I could cover it. May I write you a note?’
He addressed the question to Louie-Louie, who agreed. Bull looked as if he would like to disagree, however he was overruled.
‘I’d bet you your Kingdom,’ said Beowulf to Louis, ‘But that wouldn’t be a proper bet would it? I’ll cover the eight hundred and I’ll raise you four hundred more.’
Louis looked at his unbeatable hand and then his heart almost stopped beating. He had a Royal Flush. The possibility against drawing a royal flush was around six hundred and fifty thousand to one against (he had recently been advised of this by the Royal Mathematician, who knew of the Louis’ liking for gambling) and a Royal Flush beat all other hands, except for a better Royal Flush!
Louis’ flush was in hearts; surely neither Bull nor Beowulf could have a Royal Flush in Spades? Panic gripped him until he remembered that he was the King. He could afford to lose, he just didn’t want to. He was sure that if he lost to Beowulf, he could simply have him executed and take all the money. He wasn’t so sure he could do that with Bull. He calmed himself down. He wasn’t going to lose!
‘I’ll take that bet,’ he said. All eyes turned to Cardinal Bull. Bull had no inclination to back down, ever. Grimly he also accepted the bet.
After a bit of calculation, Henri nervously declared,
‘The pot stands at five thousand gold crowns.’
While Mascarpone searched through the small chest for the missing letter Amarilla tried to come up with a plan to replace it with the one she had written before he had arrived. Her initial plan had been to insert the substitute letter into the correct envelope and allow Mascarpone to carry the wrong message away. She had then thought to distract him, allowing Emsie to complete the task; however she had not been able to stomach using herself as a decoy. They could always hit him, knock him down and then swap the letter, she thought cheerfully; however he would then know that something was amiss and it would be better if he did not. Time was running out; he had found the letter.
‘My friend is hiding under your bed,’ she said aiming for a tone she would describe as ‘saucy.’
‘Really?’ asked Mascarpone in surprise, he was always interested in a novelty.
‘She won’t come out because she is even dirtier than I am,’ said Amarilla as brazenly as she could manage, ‘She wants you to look.’
Emsie was not too sure about this, but Mascarpone was keen to look. He put down the letter and began to crawl under the bed,
‘Come to me, you dirty, dirty girl!’ he said.
As Emsie scrambled further away from the on-crawling Cardinal, Amarilla deftly switched the letters.
‘We mustn’t keep Your Reverence!’ she shouted, while moving swiftly to the door. Emsie, taking the cue slithered rapidly out from the opposite side of the bed and both girls ran laughing back towards the kitchen.
Mascarpone despondently regained his feet, picked up the letter and set off, back to the gambling room. For a moment he wondered what that had all been about, but as he was unable to work it out, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and taking the evidence back to the King.