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CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD.
Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained
in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of
young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news
from England.
"How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one.
"And how with the good Queen Philippa?"
"And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third.
"The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing
the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The
prince would take your head off for those words."
"By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as
empty as a beggar's wallet."
"As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a
devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not
put forth the trestles yet."
"Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you
had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of
laughter.
"And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been
first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of
England, my lads of Loring?"
"I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there
last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there."
"And why less noise, young Solomon?"
"Ah, that is for your wit to discover."
"Pardieu! here is a paladin come over, with the Hampshire mud still
sticking to his shoes. He means that the noise is less for our being out
of the country."
"They are very quick in these parts," said Ford, turning to Alleyne.
"How are we to take this, sir?" asked the ruffling squire.
"You may take it as it comes," said Ford carelessly.
"Here is pertness!" cried the other.
"Sir, I honor your truthfulness," said Ford.
"Stint it, Humphrey," said the tall squire, with a burst of laughter.
"You will have little credit from this gentleman, I perceive. Tongues
are sharp in Hampshire, sir."
"And swords?"
"Hum! we may prove that. In two days' time is the vepres du tournoi,
when we may see if your lance is as quick as your wit."
"All very well, Roger Harcomb," cried a burly, bull-necked young man,
whose square shoulders and massive limbs told of exceptional personal
strength. "You pass too lightly over the matter. We are not to be so
easily overcrowed. The Lord Loring hath given his proofs; but we know
nothing of his squires, save that one of them hath a railing tongue.
And how of you, young sir?" bringing his heavy hand down on Alleyne's
shoulder.
"And what of me, young sir?"
"Ma foi! this is my lady's page come over. Your cheek will be browner
and your hand harder ere you see your mother again."
"If my hand is not hard, it is ready."
"Ready? Ready for what? For the hem of my lady's train?"
"Ready to chastise insolence, sir," cried Alleyne with hashing eyes.
"Sweet little coz!" answered the burly squire. "Such a dainty color!
Such a mellow voice! Eyes of a bashful maid, and hair like a three
years' babe! Voila!" He passed his thick fingers roughly through the
youth's crisp golden curls.
"You seek to force a quarrel, sir," said the young man, white with
anger.
"And what then?"
"Why, you do it like a country boor, and not like a gentle squire. Hast
been ill bred and as ill taught. I serve a master who could show you how
such things should be done."
"And how would he do it, O pink of squires?"
"He would neither be loud nor would he be unmannerly, but rather more
gentle than is his wont. He would say, 'Sir, I should take it as an
honor to do some small deed of arms against you, not for mine own glory
or advancement, but rather for the fame of my lady and for the upholding
of chivalry.' Then he would draw his glove, thus, and throw it on the
ground; or, if he had cause to think that he had to deal with a churl,
he might throw it in his face—as I do now!"
A buzz of excitement went up from the knot of squires as Alleyne, his
gentle nature turned by this causeless attack into fiery resolution,
dashed his glove with all his strength into the sneering face of his
antagonist. From all parts of the hall squires and pages came running,
until a dense, swaying crowd surrounded the disputants.
"Your life for this!" said the bully, with a face which was distorted
with rage.
"If you can take it," returned Alleyne.
"Good lad!" whispered Ford. "Stick to it close as wax."
"I shall see justice," cried Norbury, Sir Oliver's silent attendant.
"You brought it upon yourself, John Tranter," said the tall squire,
who had been addressed as Roger Harcomb. "You must ever plague the
new-comers. But it were shame if this went further. The lad hath shown a
proper spirit."
"But a blow! a blow!" cried several of the older squires. "There must be
a finish to this."
"Nay; Tranter first laid hand upon his head," said Harcomb. "How say
you, Tranter? The matter may rest where it stands?"
"My name is known in these parts," said Tranter, proudly, "I can let
pass what might leave a stain upon another. Let him pick up his glove
and say that he has done amiss."
"I would see him in the claws of the devil first," whispered Ford.
"You hear, young sir?" said the peacemaker. "Our friend will overlook
the matter if you do but say that you have acted in heat and haste."
"I cannot say that," answered Alleyne.
"It is our custom, young sir, when new squires come amongst us from
England, to test them in some such way. Bethink you that if a man have
a destrier or a new lance he will ever try it in time of peace, lest in
days of need it may fail him. How much more then is it proper to test
those who are our comrades in arms."
"I would draw out if it may honorably be done," murmured Norbury
in Alleyne's ear. "The man is a noted swordsman and far above your
strength."
Edricson came, however, of that sturdy Saxon blood which is very slowly
heated, but once up not easily to be cooled. The hint of danger which
Norbury threw out was the one thing needed to harden his resolution.
"I came here at the back of my master," he said, "and I looked on every
man here as an Englishman and a friend. This gentleman hath shown me a
rough welcome, and if I have answered him in the same spirit he has but
himself to thank. I will pick the glove up; but, certes, I shall abide
what I have done unless he first crave my pardon for what he hath said
and done."
Tranter shrugged his shoulders. "You have done what you could to save
him, Harcomb," said he. "We had best settle at once."
"So say I," cried Alleyne.
"The council will not break up until the banquet," remarked a
gray-haired squire. "You have a clear two hours."
"And the place?"
"The tilting-yard is empty at this hour."
"Nay; it must not be within the grounds of the court, or it may go hard
with all concerned if it come to the ears of the prince."
"But there is a quiet spot near the river," said one youth. "We have
but to pass through the abbey grounds, along the armory wall, past the
church of St. Remi, and so down the Rue des Apotres."
"En avant, then!" cried Tranter shortly, and the whole assembly flocked
out into the open air, save only those whom the special orders of their
masters held to their posts. These unfortunates crowded to the small
casements, and craned their necks after the throng as far as they could
catch a glimpse of them.
Close to the banks of the Garonne there lay a little tract of green
sward, with the high wall of a prior's garden upon one side and an
orchard with a thick bristle of leafless apple-trees upon the other. The
river ran deep and swift up to the steep bank; but there were few boats
upon it, and the ships were moored far out in the centre of the stream.
Here the two combatants drew their swords and threw off their doublets,
for neither had any defensive armor. The duello with its stately
etiquette had not yet come into vogue, but rough and sudden encounters
were as common as they must ever be when hot-headed youth goes abroad
with a weapon strapped to its waist. In such combats, as well as in
the more formal sports of the tilting-yard, Tranter had won a name for
strength and dexterity which had caused Norbury to utter his well-meant
warning. On the other hand, Alleyne had used his weapons in constant
exercise and practice for every day for many months, and being by nature
quick of eye and prompt of hand, he might pass now as no mean swordsman.
A strangely opposed pair they appeared as they approached each other:
Tranter dark and stout and stiff, with hairy chest and corded arms,
Alleyne a model of comeliness and grace, with his golden hair and his
skin as fair as a woman's. An unequal fight it seemed to most; but there
were a few, and they the most experienced, who saw something in the
youth's steady gray eye and wary step which left the issue open to
doubt.
"Hold, sirs, hold!" cried Norbury, ere a blow had been struck. "This
gentleman hath a two-handed sword, a good foot longer than that of our
friend."
"Take mine, Alleyne," said Ford.
"Nay, friends," he answered, "I understand the weight and balance of
mine own. To work, sir, for our lord may need us at the abbey!"
Tranter's great sword was indeed a mighty vantage in his favor. He stood
with his feet close together, his knees bent outwards, ready for a dash
inwards or a spring out. The weapon he held straight up in front of him
with blade erect, so that he might either bring it down with a swinging
blow, or by a turn of the heavy blade he might guard his own head and
body. A further protection lay in the broad and powerful guard which
crossed the hilt, and which was furnished with a deep and narrow notch,
in which an expert swordsman might catch his foeman's blade, and by
a quick turn of his wrist might snap it across. Alleyne, on the other
hand, must trust for his defence to his quick eye and active foot—for
his sword, though keen as a whetstone could make it, was of a light and
graceful build with a narrow, sloping pommel and a tapering steel.
Tranter well knew his advantage and lost no time in putting it to use.
As his opponent walked towards him he suddenly bounded forward and sent
in a whistling cut which would have severed the other in twain had he
not sprung lightly back from it. So close was it that the point ripped
a gash in the jutting edge of his linen cyclas. Quick as a panther,
Alleyne sprang in with a thrust, but Tranter, who was as active as he
was strong, had already recovered himself and turned it aside with a
movement of his heavy blade. Again he whizzed in a blow which made the
spectators hold their breath, and again Alleyne very quickly and swiftly
slipped from under it, and sent back two lightning thrusts which the
other could scarce parry. So close were they to each other that Alleyne
had no time to spring back from the next cut, which beat down his sword
and grazed his forehead, sending the blood streaming into his eyes and
down his cheeks. He sprang out beyond sword sweep, and the pair stood
breathing heavily, while the crowd of young squires buzzed their
applause.
"Bravely struck on both sides!" cried Roger Harcomb. "You have both
won honor from this meeting, and it would be sin and shame to let it go
further."
"You have done enough, Edricson," said Norbury.
"You have carried yourself well," cried several of the older squires.
"For my part, I have no wish to slay this young man," said Tranter,
wiping his heated brow.
"Does this gentleman crave my pardon for having used me despitefully?"
asked Alleyne.
"Nay, not I."
"Then stand on your guard, sir!" With a clatter and dash the two blades
met once more, Alleyne pressing in so as to keep within the full sweep
of the heavy blade, while Tranter as continually sprang back to have
space for one of his fatal cuts. A three-parts-parried blow drew blood
from Alleyne's left shoulder, but at the same moment he wounded Tranter
slightly upon the thigh. Next instant, however, his blade had slipped
into the fatal notch, there was a sharp cracking sound with a tinkling
upon the ground, and he found a splintered piece of steel fifteen inches
long was all that remained to him of his weapon.
"Your life is in my hands!" cried Tranter, with a bitter smile.
"Nay, nay, he makes submission!" broke in several squires.
"Another sword!" cried Ford.
"Nay, sir," said Harcomb, "that is not the custom."
"Throw down your hilt, Edricson," cried Norbury.
"Never!" said Alleyne. "Do you crave my pardon, sir?"
"You are mad to ask it."
"Then on guard again!" cried the young squire, and sprang in with a fire
and a fury which more than made up for the shortness of his weapon. It
had not escaped him that his opponent was breathing in short, hoarse
gasps, like a man who is dizzy with fatigue. Now was the time for the
purer living and the more agile limb to show their value. Back and back
gave Tranter, ever seeking time for a last cut. On and on came Alleyne,
his jagged point now at his foeman's face, now at his throat, now at
his chest, still stabbing and thrusting to pass the line of steel which
covered him. Yet his experienced foeman knew well that such efforts
could not be long sustained. Let him relax for one instant, and his
death-blow had come. Relax he must! Flesh and blood could not stand
the strain. Already the thrusts were less fierce, the foot less ready,
although there was no abatement of the spirit in the steady gray eyes.
Tranter, cunning and wary from years of fighting, knew that his chance
had come. He brushed aside the frail weapon which was opposed to him,
whirled up his great blade, sprang back to get the fairer sweep—and
vanished into the waters of the Garonne.
So intent had the squires, both combatants and spectators, been on
the matter in hand, that all thought of the steep bank and swift still
stream had gone from their minds. It was not until Tranter, giving back
before the other's fiery rush, was upon the very brink, that a general
cry warned him of his danger. That last spring, which he hoped would
have brought the fight to a bloody end, carried him clear of the edge,
and he found himself in an instant eight feet deep in the ice-cold
stream. Once and twice his gasping face and clutching fingers broke up
through the still green water, sweeping outwards in the swirl of the
current. In vain were sword-sheaths, apple-branches and belts linked
together thrown out to him by his companions. Alleyne had dropped his
shattered sword and was standing, trembling in every limb, with his rage
all changed in an instant to pity. For the third time the drowning man
came to the surface, his hands full of green slimy water-plants, his
eyes turned in despair to the shore. Their glance fell upon Alleyne,
and he could not withstand the mute appeal which he read in them. In an
instant he, too, was in the Garonne, striking out with powerful strokes
for his late foeman.
Yet the current was swift and strong, and, good swimmer as he was, it
was no easy task which Alleyne had set himself. To clutch at Tranter and
to seize him by the hair was the work of a few seconds, but to hold his
head above water and to make their way out of the current was another
matter. For a hundred strokes he did not seem to gain an inch. Then at
last, amid a shout of joy and praise from the bank, they slowly drew
clear into more stagnant water, at the instant that a rope, made of a
dozen sword-belts linked together by the buckles, was thrown by
Ford into their very hands. Three pulls from eager arms, and the two
combatants, dripping and pale, were dragged up the bank, and lay panting
upon the grass.
John Tranter was the first to come to himself, for although he had been
longer in the water, he had done nothing during that fierce battle with
the current. He staggered to his feet and looked down upon his rescuer,
who had raised himself upon his elbow, and was smiling faintly at the
buzz of congratulation and of praise which broke from the squires around
him.
"I am much beholden to you, sir," said Tranter, though in no very
friendly voice. "Certes, I should have been in the river now but for
you, for I was born in Warwickshire, which is but a dry county, and
there are few who swim in those parts."
"I ask no thanks," Alleyne answered shortly. "Give me your hand to rise,
Ford."
"The river has been my enemy," said Tranter, "but it hath been a good
friend to you, for it has saved your life this day."
"That is as it may be," returned Alleyne.
"But all is now well over," quoth Harcomb, "and no scath come of it,
which is more than I had at one time hoped for. Our young friend here
hath very fairly and honestly earned his right to be craftsman of
the Honorable Guild of the Squires of Bordeaux. Here is your doublet,
Tranter."
"Alas for my poor sword which lies at the bottom of the Garonne!" said
the squire.
"Here is your pourpoint, Edricson," cried Norbury. "Throw it over your
shoulders, that you may have at least one dry garment."
"And now away back to the abbey!" said several.
"One moment, sirs," cried Alleyne, who was leaning on Ford's shoulder,
with the broken sword, which he had picked up, still clutched in his
right hand. "My ears may be somewhat dulled by the water, and perchance
what has been said has escaped me, but I have not yet heard this
gentleman crave pardon for the insults which he put upon me in the
hall."
"What! do you still pursue the quarrel?" asked Tranter.
"And why not, sir? I am slow to take up such things, but once afoot I
shall follow it while I have life or breath."
"Ma foi! you have not too much of either, for you are as white as
marble," said Harcomb bluntly. "Take my rede, sir, and let it drop, for
you have come very well out from it."
"Nay," said Alleyne, "this quarrel is none of my making; but, now that I
am here, I swear to you that I shall never leave this spot until I have
that which I have come for: so ask my pardon, sir, or choose another
glaive and to it again."
The young squire was deadly white from his exertions, both on the land
and in the water. Soaking and stained, with a smear of blood on his
white shoulder and another on his brow, there was still in his whole
pose and set of face the trace of an inflexible resolution. His
opponent's duller and more material mind quailed before the fire and
intensity of a higher spiritual nature.
"I had not thought that you had taken it so amiss," said he awkwardly.
"It was but such a jest as we play upon each other, and, if you must
have it so, I am sorry for it."
"Then I am sorry too," quoth Alleyne warmly, "and here is my hand upon
it."
"And the none-meat horn has blown three times," quoth Harcomb, as they
all streamed in chattering groups from the ground. "I know not what the
prince's maitre-de-cuisine will say or think. By my troth! master Ford,
your friend here is in need of a cup of wine, for he hath drunk deeply
of Garonne water. I had not thought from his fair face that he had stood
to this matter so shrewdly."
"Faith," said Ford, "this air of Bordeaux hath turned our turtle-dove
into a game-***. A milder or more courteous youth never came out of
Hampshire."
"His master also, as I understand, is a very mild and courteous
gentleman," remarked Harcomb; "yet I do not think that they are either
of them men with whom it is very safe to trifle."
End of Chapter XX
CHAPTER XXI. HOW AGOSTINO PISANO RISKED HIS HEAD.
Even the squires' table at the Abbey of St. Andrew's at Bordeaux was
on a very sumptuous scale while the prince held his court there. Here
first, after the meagre fare of Beaulieu and the stinted board of the
Lady Loring, Alleyne learned the lengths to which luxury and refinement
might be pushed. Roasted peacocks, with the feathers all carefully
replaced, so that the bird lay upon the dish even as it had strutted in
life, boars' heads with the tusks gilded and the mouth lined with silver
foil, jellies in the shape of the Twelve Apostles, and a great pasty
which formed an exact model of the king's new castle at Windsor—these
were a few of the strange dishes which faced him. An archer had brought
him a change of clothes from the cog, and he had already, with the
elasticity of youth, shaken off the troubles and fatigues of the
morning. A page from the inner banqueting-hall had come with word that
their master intended to drink wine at the lodgings of the Lord Chandos
that night, and that he desired his squires to sleep at the hotel of the
"Half Moon" on the Rue des Apotres. Thither then they both set out in
the twilight after the long course of juggling tricks and glee-singing
with which the principal meal was concluded.
A thin rain was falling as the two youths, with their cloaks over their
heads, made their way on foot through the streets of the old town,
leaving their horses in the royal stables. An occasional oil lamp at the
corner of a street, or in the portico of some wealthy burgher, threw a
faint glimmer over the shining cobblestones, and the varied motley crowd
who, in spite of the weather, ebbed and flowed along every highway. In
those scattered circles of dim radiance might be seen the whole
busy panorama of life in a wealthy and martial city. Here passed the
round-faced burgher, swollen with prosperity, his sweeping dark-clothed
gaberdine, flat velvet cap, broad leather belt and dangling pouch all
speaking of comfort and of wealth. Behind him his serving ***, her
blue whimple over her head, and one hand thrust forth to bear the
lanthorn which threw a golden bar of light along her master's path.
Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen,
speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce
comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that
they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons. The
burgher glanced back at their fierce faces and quickened his step, while
the girl pulled her whimple closer round her, for there was a meaning in
their wild eyes, as they stared at the purse and the maiden, which
men of all tongues could understand. Then came archers of the guard,
shrill-voiced women of the camp, English pages with their fair skins and
blue wondering eyes, dark-robed friars, lounging men-at-arms, swarthy
loud-tongued Gascon serving-men, *** from the river, rude peasants
of the Medoc, and becloaked and befeathered squires of the court, all
jostling and pushing in an ever-changing, many-colored stream, while
English, French, Welsh, Basque, and the varied dialects of Gascony and
Guienne filled the air with their babel. From time to time the throng
would be burst asunder and a lady's horse-litter would trot past tow
torch-bearing archers walking in front of Gascon baron or English
knight, as he sought his lodgings after the palace revels. Clatter of
hoofs, clinking of weapons, shouts from the drunken brawlers, and high
laughter of women, they all rose up, like the mist from a marsh, out of
the crowded streets of the dim-lit city.
One couple out of the moving throng especially engaged the attention
of the two young squires, the more so as they were going in their own
direction and immediately in front of them. They consisted of a man and
a girl, the former very tall with rounded shoulders, a limp of one
foot, and a large flat object covered with dark cloth under his arm.
His companion was young and straight, with a quick, elastic step and
graceful bearing, though so swathed in a black mantle that little could
be seen of her face save a flash of dark eyes and a curve of raven hair.
The tall man leaned heavily upon her to take the weight off his tender
foot, while he held his burden betwixt himself and the wall, cuddling it
jealously to his side, and thrusting forward his young companion to act
as a buttress whenever the pressure of the crowd threatened to bear him
away. The evident anxiety of the man, the appearance of his attendant,
and the joint care with which they defended their concealed possession,
excited the interest of the two young Englishmen who walked within
hand-touch of them.
"Courage, child!" they heard the tall man exclaim in strange hybrid
French. "If we can win another sixty paces we are safe."
"Hold it safe, father," the other answered, in the same soft, mincing
dialect. "We have no cause for fear."
"Verily, they are heathens and barbarians," cried the man; "mad,
howling, drunken barbarians! Forty more paces, Tita mia, and I swear to
the holy Eloi, patron of all learned craftsmen, that I will never set
foot over my door again until the whole swarm are safely hived in their
camp of Dax, or wherever else they curse with their presence. Twenty
more paces, my treasure: Ah, my God! how they push and brawl! Get
in their way, Tita mia! Put your little elbow bravely out! Set your
shoulders squarely against them, girl! Why should you give way to these
mad islanders? Ah, cospetto! we are ruined and destroyed!"
The crowd had thickened in front, so that the lame man and the girl had
come to a stand. Several half-drunken English archers, attracted, as
the squires had been, by their singular appearance, were facing towards
them, and peering at them through the dim light.
"By the three kings!" cried one, "here is an old dotard shrew to have
so goodly a crutch! Use the leg that God hath given you, man, and do not
bear so heavily upon the ***."
"Twenty devils fly away with him!" shouted another. "What, how, man!
are brave archers to go maidless while an old man uses one as a
walking-staff?"
"Come with me, my honey-bird!" cried a third, plucking at the girl's
mantle.
"Nay, with me, my heart's desire!" said the first. "By St. George! our
life is short, and we should be merry while we may. May I never see
Chester Bridge again, if she is not a right winsome lass!"
"What hath the old toad under his arm?" cried one of the others. "He
hugs it to him as the devil hugged the pardoner."
"Let us see, old bag of bones; let us see what it is that you have
under your arm!" They crowded in upon him, while he, ignorant of their
language, could but clutch the girl with one hand and the parcel with
the other, looking wildly about in search of help.
"Nay, lads, nay!" cried Ford, pushing back the nearest archer. "This
is but scurvy conduct. Keep your hands off, or it will be the worse for
you."
"Keep your tongue still, or it will be the worse for you," shouted the
most drunken of the archers. "Who are you to spoil sport?"
"A raw squire, new landed," said another. "By St. Thomas of Kent! we are
at the beck of our master, but we are not to be ordered by every babe
whose mother hath sent him as far as Aquitaine."
"Oh, gentlemen," cried the girl in broken French, "for dear Christ's
sake stand by us, and do not let these terrible men do us an injury."
"Have no fears, lady," Alleyne answered. "We shall see that all is
well with you. Take your hand from the girl's wrist, you north-country
rogue!"
"Hold to her, Wat!" said a great black-bearded man-at-arms, whose steel
breast-plate glimmered in the dusk. "Keep your hands from your bodkins,
you two, for that was my trade before you were born, and, by God's soul!
I will drive a handful of steel through you if you move a finger."
"Thank God!" said Alleyne suddenly, as he spied in the lamp-light a
shock of blazing red hair which fringed a steel cap high above the heads
of the crowd. "Here is John, and Aylward, too! Help us, comrades, for
there is wrong being done to this maid and to the old man."
"Hola, mon petit," said the old bowman, pushing his way through the
crowd, with the huge forester at his heels. "What is all this, then?
By the twang of string! I think that you will have some work upon your
hands if you are to right all the wrongs that you may see upon this side
of the water. It is not to be thought that a troop of bowmen, with the
wine buzzing in their ears, will be as soft-spoken as so many young
clerks in an orchard. When you have been a year with the Company
you will think less of such matters. But what is amiss here? The
provost-marshal with his archers is coming this way, and some of you may
find yourselves in the stretch-neck, if you take not heed."
"Why, it is old Sam Aylward of the White Company!" shouted the
man-at-arms. "Why, Samkin, what hath come upon thee? I can call to mind
the day when you were as roaring a blade as ever called himself a free
companion. By my soul! from Limoges to Navarre, who was there who would
kiss a *** or cut a throat as readily as bowman Aylward of Hawkwood's
company?"
"Like enough, Peter," said Aylward, "and, by my hilt! I may not have
changed so much. But it was ever a fair loose and a clear mark with me.
The *** must be willing, or the man must be standing up against me,
else, by these ten finger bones I either were safe enough for me."
A glance at Aylward's resolute face, and at the huge shoulders of Hordle
John, had convinced the archers that there was little to be got by
violence. The girl and the old man began to shuffle on in the crowd
without their tormentors venturing to stop them. Ford and Alleyne
followed slowly behind them, but Aylward caught the latter by the
shoulder.
"By my hilt! camarade," said he, "I hear that you have done great things
at the Abbey to-day, but I pray you to have a care, for it was I who
brought you into the Company, and it would be a black day for me if
aught were to befall you."
"Nay, Aylward, I will have a care."
"Thrust not forward into danger too much, mon petit. In a little time
your wrist will be stronger and your cut more shrewd. There will be some
of us at the 'Rose de Guienne' to-night, which is two doors from the
hotel of the 'Half Moon,' so if you would drain a cup with a few simple
archers you will be right welcome."
Alleyne promised to be there if his duties would allow, and then,
slipping through the crowd, he rejoined Ford, who was standing in talk
with the two strangers, who had now reached their own doorstep.
"Brave young signor," cried the tall man, throwing his arms round
Alleyne, "how can we thank you enough for taking our parts against those
horrible drunken barbarians. What should we have done without you? My
Tita would have been dragged away, and my head would have been shivered
into a thousand fragments."
"Nay, I scarce think that they would have mishandled you so," said
Alleyne in surprise.
"Ho, ho!" cried he with a high crowing laugh, "it is not the head upon
my shoulders that I think of. Cospetto! no. It is the head under my arm
which you have preserved."
"Perhaps the signori would deign to come under our roof, father," said
the maiden. "If we bide here, who knows that some fresh tumult may not
break out."
"Well said, Tita! Well said, my girl! I pray you, sirs, to honor my
unworthy roof so far. A light, Giacomo! There are five steps up. Now
two more. So! Here we are at last in safety. Corpo di Bacco! I would
not have given ten maravedi for my head when those children of the devil
were pushing us against the wall. Tita mia, you have been a brave girl,
and it was better that you should be pulled and pushed than that my head
should be broken."
"Yes indeed, father," said she earnestly.
"But those English! Ach! Take a Goth, a Hun, and a Vandal, mix them
together and add a Barbary rover; then take this creature and make him
drunk—and you have an Englishman. My God I were ever such people upon
earth! What place is free from them? I hear that they swarm in Italy
even as they swarm here. Everywhere you will find them, except in
heaven."
"Dear father," cried Tita, still supporting the angry old man, as he
limped up the curved oaken stair. "You must not forget that these good
signori who have preserved us are also English."
"Ah, yes. My pardon, sirs! Come into my rooms here. There are some who
might find some pleasure in these paintings, but I learn the art of war
is the only art which is held in honor in your island."
The low-roofed, oak-panelled room into which he conducted them was
brilliantly lit by four scented oil lamps. Against the walls, upon the
table, on the floor, and in every part of the chamber were great sheets
of glass painted in the most brilliant colors. Ford and Edricson gazed
around them in amazement, for never had they seen such magnificent works
of art.
"You like them then," the lame artist cried, in answer to the look of
pleasure and of surprise in their faces. "There are then some of you who
have a taste for such trifling."
"I could not have believed it," exclaimed Alleyne. "What color! What
outlines! See to this martyrdom of the holy Stephen, Ford. Could you not
yourself pick up one of these stones which lie to the hand of the wicked
murtherers?"
"And see this stag, Alleyne, with the cross betwixt its horns. By my
faith! I have never seen a better one at the Forest of Bere."
"And the green of this grass—how bright and clear! Why all the painting
that I have seen is but child's play beside this. This worthy gentleman
must be one of those great painters of whom I have oft heard brother
Bartholomew speak in the old days at Beaulieu."
The dark mobile face of the artist shone with pleasure at the unaffected
delight of the two young Englishmen. His daughter had thrown off her
mantle and disclosed a face of the finest and most delicate Italian
beauty, which soon drew Ford's eyes from the pictures in front of him.
Alleyne, however, continued with little cries of admiration and of
wonderment to turn from the walls to the table and yet again to the
walls.
"What think you of this, young sir?" asked the painter, tearing off the
cloth which concealed the flat object which he had borne beneath his
arm. It was a leaf-shaped sheet of glass bearing upon it a face with a
halo round it, so delicately outlined, and of so perfect a tint, that it
might have been indeed a human face which gazed with sad and thoughtful
eyes upon the young squire. He clapped his hands, with that thrill of
joy which true art will ever give to a true artist.
"It is great!" he cried. "It is wonderful! But I marvel, sir, that you
should have risked a work of such beauty and value by bearing it at
night through so unruly a crowd."
"I have indeed been rash," said the artist. "Some wine, Tita, from the
Florence flask! Had it not been for you, I tremble to think of what
might have come of it. See to the skin tint: it is not to be replaced,
for paint as you will, it is not once in a hundred times that it is not
either burned too brown in the furnace or else the color will not hold,
and you get but a sickly white. There you can see the very veins and the
throb of thee blood. Yes, diavolo! if it had broken, my heart would have
broken too. It is for the choir window in the church of St. Remi, and
we had gone, my little helper and I, to see if it was indeed of the size
for the stonework. Night had fallen ere we finished, and what could we
do save carry it home as best we might? But you, young sir, you speak as
if you too knew something of the art."
"So little that I scarce dare speak of it in your presence," Alleyne
answered. "I have been cloister-bred, and it was no very great matter to
handle the brush better than my brother novices."
"There are pigments, brush, and paper," said the old artist. "I do not
give you glass, for that is another matter, and takes much skill in the
mixing of colors. Now I pray you to show me a touch of your art. I thank
you, Tita! The Venetian glasses, cara mia, and fill them to the brim. A
seat, signor!"
While Ford, in his English-French, was conversing with Tita in her
Italian French, the old man was carefully examining his precious head to
see that no scratch had been left upon its surface. When he glanced up
again, Alleyne had, with a few bold strokes of the brush, tinted in a
woman's face and neck upon the white sheet in front of him.
"Diavolo!" exclaimed the old artist, standing with his head on one side,
"you have power; yes, cospetto! you have power, it is the face of an
angel!"
"It is the face of the Lady Maude Loring!" cried Ford, even more
astonished.
"Why, on my faith, it is not unlike her!" said Alleyne, in some
confusion.
"Ah! a portrait! So much the better. Young man, I am Agostino Pisano,
the son of Andrea Pisano, and I say again that you have power. Further,
I say, that, if you will stay with me, I will teach you all the secrets
of the glass-stainers' mystery: the pigments and their thickening,
which will fuse into the glass and which will not, the furnace and the
glazing—every trick and method you shall know."
"I would be right glad to study under such a master," said Alleyne; "but
I am sworn to follow my lord whilst this war lasts."
"War! war!" cried the old Italian. "Ever this talk of war. And the men
that you hold to be great—what are they? Have I not heard their names?
Soldiers, butchers, destroyers! Ah, per Bacco! we have men in Italy who
are in very truth great. You pull down, you despoil; but they build up,
they restore. Ah, if you could but see my own dear Pisa, the Duomo, the
cloisters of Campo Santo, the high Campanile, with the mellow throb of
her bells upon the warm Italian air! Those are the works of great men.
And I have seen them with my own eyes, these very eyes which look upon
you. I have seen Andrea Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, Giottino, Stefano, Simone
Memmi—men whose very colors I am not worthy to mix. And I have seen the
aged Giotto, and he in turn was pupil to Cimabue, before whom there was
no art in Italy, for the Greeks were brought to paint the chapel of the
Gondi at Florence. Ah, signori, there are the real great men whose names
will be held in honor when your soldiers are shown to have been the
enemies of humankind."
"Faith, sir," said Ford, "there is something to say for the soldiers
also, for, unless they be defended, how are all these gentlemen whom you
have mentioned to preserve the pictures which they have painted?"
"And all these!" said Alleyne. "Have you indeed done them all?—and
where are they to go?"
"Yes, signor, they are all from my hand. Some are, as you see, upon one
sheet, and some are in many pieces which may fasten together. There are
some who do but paint upon the glass, and then, by placing another sheet
of glass upon the top and fastening it, they keep the air from their
painting. Yet I hold that the true art of my craft lies as much in the
furnace as in the brush. See this rose window, which is from the model
of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Vendome, and this other of the
'Finding of the Grail,' which is for the apse of the Abbey church. Time
was when none but my countrymen could do these things; but there is
Clement of Chartres and others in France who are very worthy workmen.
But, ah! there is that ever shrieking brazen tongue which will not let
us forget for one short hour that it is the arm of the savage, and not
the hand of the master, which rules over the world."
A stern, clear bugle call had sounded close at hand to summon some
following together for the night.
"It is a sign to us as well," said Ford. "I would fain stay here forever
amid all these beautiful things—" staring hard at the blushing Tita as
he spoke—"but we must be back at our lord's hostel ere he reach it."
Amid renewed thanks and with promises to come again, the two squires
bade their leave of the old Italian glass-stainer and his daughter. The
streets were clearer now, and the rain had stopped, so they made their
way quickly from the Rue du Roi, in which their new friends dwelt, to
the Rue des Apotres, where the hostel of the "Half Moon" was situated.
End of Chapter XXI
CHAPTER XXII. HOW THE BOWMEN HELD WASSAIL AT THE "ROSE DE GUIENNE."
"Mon Dieu! Alleyne, saw you ever so lovely a face?" cried Ford as they
hurried along together. "So pure, so peaceful, and so beautiful!"
"In sooth, yes. And the hue of the skin the most perfect that ever I
saw. Marked you also how the hair curled round the brow? It was wonder
fine."
"Those eyes, too!" cried Ford. "How clear and how tender—simple, and
yet so full of thought!"
"If there was a weakness it was in the chin," said Alleyne.
"Nay. I saw none."
"It was well curved, it is true."
"Most daintily so."
"And yet——"
"What then, Alleyne? Wouldst find flaw in the sun?"
"Well, bethink you, Ford, would not more power and expression have been
put into the face by a long and noble beard?"
"Holy ***!" cried Ford, "the man is mad. A beard on the face of
little Tita!"
"Tita! Who spoke of Tita?"
"Who spoke of aught else?"
"It was the picture of St. Remi, man, of which I have been discoursing."
"You are indeed," cried Ford, laughing, "a Goth, Hun, and Vandal, with
all the other hard names which the old man called us. How could you
think so much of a smear of pigments, when there was such a picture
painted by the good God himself in the very room with you? But who is
this?"
"If it please you, sirs," said an archer, running across to them,
"Aylward and others would be right glad to see you. They are within
here. He bade me say to you that the Lord Loring will not need your
service to-night, as he sleeps with the Lord Chandos."
"By my faith!" said Ford, "we do not need a guide to lead us to their
presence." As he spoke there came a roar of singing from the tavern upon
the right, with shouts of laughter and stamping of feet. Passing under
a low door, and down a stone-flagged passage, they found themselves in a
long narrow hall lit up by a pair of blazing torches, one at either end.
Trusses of straw had been thrown down along the walls, and reclining on
them were some twenty or thirty archers, all of the Company, their
steel caps and jacks thrown off, their tunics open and their great limbs
sprawling upon the clay floor. At every man's elbow stood his leathern
blackjack of beer, while at the further end a hogshead with its end
knocked in promised an abundant supply for the future. Behind the
hogshead, on a half circle of kegs, boxes, and rude settles, sat
Aylward, John, Black Simon and three or four other leading men of the
archers, together with Goodwin Hawtayne, the master-shipman, who had
left his yellow cog in the river to have a last rouse with his friends
of the Company. Ford and Alleyne took their seats between Aylward and
Black Simon, without their entrance checking in any degree the hubbub
which was going on.
"Ale, mes camarades?" cried the bowman, "or shall it be wine? Nay,
but ye must have the one or the other. Here, Jacques, thou limb of the
devil, bring a bottrine of the oldest vernage, and see that you do not
shake it. Hast heard the news?"
"Nay," cried both the squires.
"That we are to have a brave tourney."
"A tourney?"
"Aye, lads. For the Captal du Buch hath sworn that he will find
five knights from this side of the water who will ride over any five
Englishmen who ever threw leg over saddle; and Chandos hath taken up the
challenge, and the prince hath promised a golden vase for the man who
carries himself best, and all the court is in a buzz over it."
"Why should the knights have all the sport?" growled Hordle John. "Could
they not set up five archers for the honor of Aquitaine and of Gascony?"
"Or five men-at-arms," said Black Simon.
"But who are the English knights?" asked Hawtayne.
"There are three hundred and forty-one in the town," said Aylward, "and
I hear that three hundred and forty cartels and defiances have already
been sent in, the only one missing being Sir John Ravensholme, who is in
his bed with the sweating sickness, and cannot set foot to ground."
"I have heard of it from one of the archers of the guard," cried a
bowman from among the straw; "I hear that the prince wished to break a
lance, but that Chandos would not hear of it, for the game is likely to
be a rough one."
"Then there is Chandos."
"Nay, the prince would not permit it. He is to be marshal of the lists,
with Sir William Felton and the Duc d'Armagnac. The English will be the
Lord Audley, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Thomas Wake, Sir William Beauchamp,
and our own very good lord and leader."
"Hurrah for him, and God be with him!" cried several. "It is honor to
draw string in his service."
"So you may well say," said Aylward. "By my ten finger-bones! if you
march behind the pennon of the five roses you are like to see all that a
good bowman would wish to see. Ha! yes, mes garcons, you laugh, but, by
my hilt! you may not laugh when you find yourselves where he will take
you, for you can never tell what strange vow he may not have sworn to. I
see that he has a patch over his eye, even as he had at Poictiers. There
will come bloodshed of that patch, or I am the more mistaken."
"How chanced it at Poictiers, good Master Aylward?" asked one of the
young archers, leaning upon his elbows, with his eyes fixed respectfully
upon the old bowman's rugged face.
"Aye, Aylward, tell us of it," cried Hordle John.
"Here is to old Samkin Aylward!" shouted several at the further end of
the room, waving their blackjacks in the air.
"Ask him!" said Aylward modestly, nodding towards Black Simon. "He saw
more than I did. And yet, by the holy nails! there was not very much
that I did not see either."
"Ah, yes," said Simon, shaking his head, "it was a great day. I never
hope to see such another. There were some fine archers who drew their
last shaft that day. We shall never see better men, Aylward."
"By my hilt! no. There was little Robby Withstaff, and Andrew
Salblaster, and Wat Alspaye, who broke the neck of the German. Mon Dieu!
what men they were! Take them how you would, at long butts or short,
hoyles, rounds, or rovers, better bowmen never twirled a shaft over
their thumb-nails."
"But the fight, Aylward, the fight!" cried several impatiently.
"Let me fill my jack first, boys, for it is a thirsty tale. It was at
the first fall of the leaf that the prince set forth, and he passed
through Auvergne, and Berry, and Anjou, and Touraine. In Auvergne the
maids are kind, but the wines are sour. In Berry it is the women that
are sour, but the wines are rich. Anjou, however, is a very good
land for bowmen, for wine and women are all that heart could wish. In
Touraine I got nothing save a broken pate, but at Vierzon I had a great
good fortune, for I had a golden pyx from the minster, for which I
afterwards got nine Genoan janes from the goldsmith in the Rue
Mont Olive. From thence we went to Bourges, were I had a tunic of
flame-colored silk and a very fine pair of shoes with tassels of silk
and drops of silver."
"From a stall, Aylward?" asked one of the young archers.
"Nay, from a man's feet, lad. I had reason to think that he might not
need them again, seeing that a thirty-inch shaft had feathered in his
back."
"And what then, Aylward?"
"On we went, coz, some six thousand of us, until we came to Issodun, and
there again a very great thing befell."
"A battle, Aylward?"
"Nay, nay; a greater thing than that. There is little to be gained out
of a battle, unless one have the fortune to win a ransom. At Issodun I
and three Welshmen came upon a house which all others had passed, and
we had the profit of it to ourselves. For myself, I had a fine
feather-bed—a thing which you will not see in a long day's journey in
England. You have seen it, Alleyne, and you, John. You will bear me out
that it is a noble bed. We put it on a sutler's mule, and bore it after
the army. It was on my mind that I would lay it by until I came to
start house of mine own, and I have it now in a very safe place near
Lyndhurst."
"And what then, master-bowman?" asked Hawtayne. "By St. Christopher! it
is indeed a fair and goodly life which you have chosen, for you gather
up the spoil as a Warsash man gathers lobsters, without grace or favor
from any man."
"You are right, master-shipman," said another of the older archers.
"It is an old bowyer's rede that the second feather of a fenny goose is
better than the pinion of a tame one. Draw on old lad, for I have come
between you and the clout."
"On we went then," said Aylward, after a long pull at his blackjack.
"There were some six thousand of us, with the prince and his knights,
and the feather-bed upon a sutler's mule in the centre. We made great
havoc in Touraine, until we came into Romorantin, where I chanced upon
a gold chain and two bracelets of jasper, which were stolen from me the
same day by a black-eyed *** from the Ardennes. Mon Dieu! there are
some folk who have no fear of Domesday in them, and no sign of grace in
their souls, for ever clutching and clawing at another man's chattels."
"But the battle, Aylward, the battle!" cried several, amid a burst of
laughter.
"I come to it, my young war-pups. Well, then, the King of France had
followed us with fifty thousand men, and he made great haste to catch
us, but when he had us he scarce knew what to do with us, for we were
so drawn up among hedges and vineyards that they could not come nigh us,
save by one lane. On both sides were archers, men-at-arms and knights
behind, and in the centre the baggage, with my feather-bed upon a
sutler's mule. Three hundred chosen knights came straight for it, and,
indeed, they were very brave men, but such a drift of arrows met them
that few came back. Then came the Germans, and they also fought very
bravely, so that one or two broke through the archers and came as far
as the feather-bed, but all to no purpose. Then out rides our own little
hothead with the patch over his eye, and my Lord Audley with his four
Cheshire squires, and a few others of like kidney, and after them went
the prince and Chandos, and then the whole throng of us, with axe and
sword, for we had shot away our arrows. Ma foi! it was a foolish thing,
for we came forth from the hedges, and there was naught to guard the
baggage had they ridden round behind us. But all went well with us, and
the king was taken, and little Robby Withstaff and I fell in with a wain
with twelve firkins of wine for the king's own table, and, by my hilt!
if you ask me what happened after that, I cannot answer you, nor can
little Robby Withstaff either."
"And next day?"
"By my faith! we did not tarry long, but we hied back to Bordeaux, where
we came in safety with the King of France and also the feather-bed. I
sold my spoil, mes garcons, for as many gold-pieces as I could hold in
my hufken, and for seven days I lit twelve wax candles upon the altar of
St. Andrew; for if you forget the blessed when things are well with you,
they are very likely to forget you when you have need of them. I have a
score of one hundred and nineteen pounds of wax against the holy Andrew,
and, as he was a very just man, I doubt not that I shall have full weigh
and measure when I have most need of it."
"Tell me, master Aylward," cried a young fresh-faced archer at the
further end of the room, "what was this great battle about?"
"Why, you jack-fool, what would it be about save who should wear the
crown of France?"
"I thought that mayhap it might be as to who should have this
feather-bed of thine."
"If I come down to you, Silas, I may lay my belt across your shoulders,"
Aylward answered, amid a general shout of laughter. "But it is time
young chickens went to roost when they dare cackle against their elders.
It is late, Simon."
"Nay, let us have another song."
"Here is Arnold of Sowley will troll as good a stave as any man in the
Company."
"Nay, we have one here who is second to none," said Hawtayne, laying his
hand upon big John's shoulder. "I have heard him on the cog with a voice
like the wave upon the shore. I pray you, friend, to give us 'The Bells
of Milton,' or, if you will, 'The Franklin's Maid.'"
Hordle John drew the back of his hand across his mouth, fixed his eyes
upon the corner of the ceiling, and bellowed forth, in a voice which
made the torches flicker, the southland ballad for which he had been
asked:—
The franklin he hath gone to roam, The franklin's maid she bides at home,
But she is cold and coy and staid, And who may win the franklin's maid?
There came a knight of high renown In bassinet and ciclatoun;
On bended knee full long he prayed, He might not win the franklin's maid.
There came a squire so debonair His dress was rich, his words were fair,
He sweetly sang, he deftly played: He could not win the franklin's maid.
There came a mercer wonder-fine With velvet cap and gaberdine;
For all his ships, for all his trade He could not buy the franklin's maid.
There came an archer bold and true, With bracer guard and stave of yew;
His purse was light, his jerkin frayed; Haro, alas! the franklin's maid!
Oh, some have laughed and some have cried And some have scoured the country-side!
But off they ride through wood and glade, The bowman and the franklin's maid.
A roar of delight from his audience, with stamping of feet and beating
of blackjacks against the ground, showed how thoroughly the song was
to their taste, while John modestly retired into a quart pot, which he
drained in four giant gulps. "I sang that ditty in Hordle ale-house ere
I ever thought to be an archer myself," quoth he.
"Fill up your stoups!" cried Black Simon, thrusting his own goblet into
the open hogshead in front of him. "Here is a last cup to the White
Company, and every brave boy who walks behind the roses of Loring!"
"To the wood, the flax, and the gander's wing!" said an old gray-headed
archer on the right.
"To a gentle loose, and the King of Spain for a mark at fourteen score!"
cried another.
"To a bloody war!" shouted a fourth. "Many to go and few to come!"
"With the most gold to the best steel!" added a fifth.
"And a last cup to the maids of our heart!" cried Aylward. "A steady
hand and a true eye, boys; so let two quarts be a bowman's portion."
With shout and jest and *** of song they streamed from the room, and
all was peaceful once more in the "Rose de Guienne."
End of Chapter XXII
CHAPTER XXIII. HOW ENGLAND HELD THE LISTS AT BORDEAUX. So used were the
good burghers of Bordeaux to martial display and knightly sport, that an
ordinary joust or tournament was an everyday matter with them. The fame
and brilliancy of the prince's court had drawn the knights-errant and
pursuivants-of-arms from every part of Europe. In the long lists by the
Garonne on the landward side of the northern gate there had been many a
strange combat, when the Teutonic knight, fresh from the conquest of the
Prussian heathen, ran a course against the knight of Calatrava, hardened
by continual struggle against the Moors, or cavaliers from Portugal
broke a lance with Scandinavian warriors from the further shore of the
great Northern Ocean. Here fluttered many an outland pennon, bearing
symbol and blazonry from the banks of the Danube, the wilds of Lithuania
and the mountain strongholds of Hungary; for chivalry was of no clime
and of no race, nor was any land so wild that the fame and name of the
prince had not sounded through it from border to border.
Great, however, was the excitement through town and district when it
was learned that on the third Wednesday in Advent there would be held
a passage-at-arms in which five knights of England would hold the lists
against all comers. The great concourse of noblemen and famous soldiers,
the national character of the contest, and the fact that this was a last
trial of arms before what promised to be an arduous and bloody war,
all united to make the event one of the most notable and brilliant that
Bordeaux had ever seen. On the eve of the contest the peasants flocked
in from the whole district of the Medoc, and the fields beyond the walls
were whitened with the tents of those who could find no warmer lodging.
From the distant camp of Dax, too, and from Blaye, Bourge, Libourne, St.
Emilion, Castillon, St. Macaire, Cardillac, Ryons, and all the cluster
of flourishing towns which look upon Bordeaux as their mother, there
thronged an unceasing stream of horsemen and of footmen, all converging
upon the great city. By the morning of the day on which the courses were
to be run, not less than eighty people had assembled round the lists
and along the low grassy ridge which looks down upon the scene of the
encounter.
It was, as may well be imagined, no easy matter among so many noted
cavaliers to choose out five on either side who should have precedence
over their fellows. A score of secondary combats had nearly arisen from
the rivalries and bad blood created by the selection, and it was only
the influence of the prince and the efforts of the older barons which
kept the peace among so many eager and fiery soldiers. Not till the day
before the courses were the shields finally hung out for the inspection
of the ladies and the heralds, so that all men might know the names
of the champions and have the opportunity to prefer any charge against
them, should there be stain upon them which should disqualify them from
taking part in so noble and honorable a ceremony.
Sir Hugh Calverley and Sir Robert Knolles had not yet returned from
their raid into the marches of the Navarre, so that the English party
were deprived of two of their most famous lances. Yet there remained so
many good names that Chandos and Felton, to whom the selection had been
referred, had many an earnest consultation, in which every feat of
arms and failure or success of each candidate was weighed and balanced
against the rival claims of his companions. Lord Audley of Cheshire,
the hero of Poictiers, and Loring of Hampshire, who was held to be the
second lance in the army, were easily fixed upon. Then, of the younger
men, Sir Thomas Percy of Northumberland, Sir Thomas Wake of Yorkshire,
and Sir William Beauchamp of Gloucestershire, were finally selected to
uphold the honor of England. On the other side were the veteran Captal
de Buch and the brawny Olivier de Clisson, with the free companion
Sir Perducas d'Albret, the valiant Lord of Mucident, and Sigismond von
Altenstadt, of the Teutonic Order. The older soldiers among the English
shook their heads as they looked upon the escutcheons of these famous
warriors, for they were all men who had spent their lives upon the
saddle, and bravery and strength can avail little against experience and
wisdom of war.
"By my faith! Sir John," said the prince as he rode through the winding
streets on his way to the list, "I should have been glad to have
splintered a lance to-day. You have seen me hold a spear since I had
strength to lift one, and should know best whether I do not merit a
place among this honorable company."
"There is no better seat and no truer lance, sire," said Chandos; "but,
if I may say so without fear of offence, it were not fitting that you
should join in this debate."
"And why, Sir John?"
"Because, sire, it is not for you to take part with Gascons against
English, or with English against Gascons, seeing that you are lord of
both. We are not too well loved by the Gascons now, and it is but the
golden link of your princely coronet which holds us together. If that be
snapped I know not what would follow."
"Snapped, Sir John!" cried the prince, with an angry sparkle in his dark
eyes. "What manner of talk is this? You speak as though the allegiance
of our people were a thing which might be thrown off or on like a
falcon's jessel."
"With a sorry hack one uses whip and spur, sire," said Chandos; "but
with a horse of blood and spirit a good cavalier is gentle and soothing,
coaxing rather than forcing. These folk are strange people, and you must
hold their love, even as you have it now, for you will get from their
kindness what all the pennons in your army could not wring from them."
"You are over-grave to-day, John," the prince answered. "We may keep
such questions for our council-chamber. But how now, my brothers of
Spain, and of Majorca, what think you of this challenge?"
"I look to see some handsome joisting," said Don Pedro, who rode with
the King of Majorca upon the right of the prince, while Chandos was on
the left. "By St. James of Compostella! but these burghers would bear
some taxing. See to the broadcloth and velvet that the rogues bear upon
their backs! By my troth! if they were my subjects they would be glad
enough to wear falding and leather ere I had done with them. But mayhap
it is best to let the wool grow long ere you clip it."
"It is our pride," the prince answered coldly, "that we rule over
freemen and not slaves."
"Every man to his own humor," said Pedro carelessly. "Carajo! there is a
sweet face at yonder window! Don Fernando, I pray you to mark the house,
and to have the maid brought to us at the abbey."
"Nay, brother, nay!" cried the prince impatiently. "I have had occasion
to tell you more than once that things are not ordered in this way in
Aquitaine."
"A thousand pardons, dear friend," the Spaniard answered quickly, for a
flush of anger had sprung to the dark cheek of the English prince. "You
make my exile so like a home that I forget at times that I am not in
very truth back in Castile. Every land hath indeed its ways and manners;
but I promise you, Edward, that when you are my guest in Toledo or
Madrid you shall not yearn in vain for any commoner's daughter on whom
you may deign to cast your eye."
"Your talk, sire," said the prince still more coldly, "is not such as
I love to hear from your lips. I have no taste for such amours as you
speak of, and I have sworn that my name shall be coupled with that of no
woman save my ever dear wife."
"Ever the mirror of true chivalry!" exclaimed Pedro, while James of
Majorca, frightened at the stern countenance of their all-powerful
protector, plucked hard at the mantle of his brother exile.
"Have a care, cousin," he whispered; "for the sake of the *** have a
care, for you have angered him."
"Pshaw! fear not," the other answered in the same low tone. "If I miss
one stoop I will strike him on the next. Mark me else. Fair cousin," he
continued, turning to the prince, "these be rare men-at-arms and ***
bowmen. It would be hard indeed to match them."
"They have Journeyed far, sire, but they have never yet found their
match."
"Nor ever will, I doubt not. I feel myself to be back upon my throne
when I look at them. But tell me, dear coz, what shall we do next,
when we have driven this *** Henry from the kingdom which he hath
filched?"
"We shall then compel the King of Aragon to place our good friend and
brother James of Majorca upon the throne."
"Noble and generous prince!" cried the little monarch.
"That done," said King Pedro, glancing out of the corners of his eyes
at the young conqueror, "we shall unite the forces of England, of
Aquitaine, of Spain and of Majorca. It would be shame to us if we did
not do some great deed with such forces ready to our hand."
"You say truly, brother," cried the prince, his eyes kindling at the
thought. "Methinks that we could not do anything more pleasing to Our
Lady than to drive the heathen Moors out of the country."
"I am with you, Edward, as true as hilt to blade. But, by St. James!
we shall not let these Moors make mock at us from over the sea. We must
take ship and thrust them from Africa."
"By heaven, yes!" cried the prince. "And it is the dream of my heart
that our English pennons shall wave upon the Mount of Olives, and the
lions and lilies float over the holy city."
"And why not, dear coz? Your bowmen have cleared a path to Paris, and
why not to Jerusalem? Once there, your arms might rest."
"Nay, there is more to be done," cried the prince, carried away by the
ambitious dream. "There is still the city of Constantine to be taken,
and war to be waged against the Soldan of Damascus. And beyond him again
there is tribute to be levied from the Cham of Tartary and from the
kingdom of Cathay. Ha! John, what say you? Can we not go as far eastward
as Richard of the Lion Heart?"
"Old John will bide at home, sire," said the rugged soldier. "By my
soul! as long as I am seneschal of Aquitaine I will find enough to do
in guarding the marches which you have entrusted to me. It would be
a blithe day for the King of France when he heard that the seas lay
between him and us."
"By my soul! John," said the prince, "I have never known you turn
laggard before."
"The babbling hound, sire, is not always the first at the mort," the old
knight answered.
"Nay, my true-heart! I have tried you too often not to know. But, by my
soul! I have not seen so dense a throng since the day that we brought
King John down Cheapside."
It was indeed an enormous crowd which covered the whole vast plain from
the line of vineyards to the river bank. From the northern gate the
prince and his companions looked down at a dark sea of heads, brightened
here and there by the colored hoods of the women, or by the sparkling
head-pieces of archers and men-at-arms. In the centre of this vast
assemblage the lists seemed but a narrow strip of green marked out with
banners and streamers, while a gleam of white with a flutter of pennons
at either end showed where the marquees were pitched which served as the
dressing-rooms of the combatants. A path had been staked off from the
city gate to the stands which had been erected for the court and the
nobility. Down this, amid the shouts of the enormous multitude, the
prince cantered with his two attendant kings, his high officers of
state, and his long train of lords and ladies, courtiers, counsellors,
and soldiers, with toss of plume and flash of jewel, sheen of silk and
glint of gold—as rich and gallant a show as heart could wish. The head
of the cavalcade had reached the lists ere the rear had come clear of
the city gate, for the fairest and the bravest had assembled from all
the broad lands which are watered by the Dordogne and the Garonne. Here
rode dark-browed cavaliers from the sunny south, fiery soldiers from
Gascony, graceful courtiers of Limousin or Saintonge, and gallant young
Englishmen from beyond the seas. Here too were the beautiful brunettes
of the Gironde, with eyes which out-flashed their jewels, while beside
them rode their blonde sisters of England, clear cut and aquiline,
swathed in swans'-down and in ermine, for the air was biting though
the sun was bright. Slowly the long and glittering train wound into the
lists, until every horse had been tethered by the varlets in waiting,
and every lord and lady seated in the long stands which stretched, rich
in tapestry and velvet and blazoned arms, on either side of the centre
of the arena.
The holders of the lists occupied the end which was nearest to the city
gate. There, in front of their respective pavilions, flew the martlets
of Audley, the roses of Loring, the scarlet bars of Wake, the lion of
the Percies and the silver wings of the Beauchamps, each supported by
a squire clad in hanging green stuff to represent so many Tritons, and
bearing a huge conch-shell in their left hands. Behind the tents the
great war-horses, armed at all points, champed and reared, while their
masters sat at the doors of their pavilions, with their helmets upon
their knees, chatting as to the order of the day's doings. The English
archers and men-at-arms had mustered at that end of the lists, but the
vast majority of the spectators were in favor of the attacking party,
for the English had declined in popularity ever since the bitter dispute
as to the disposal of the royal captive after the battle of Poictiers.
Hence the applause was by no means general when the herald-at-arms
proclaimed, after a flourish of trumpets, the names and styles of the
knights who were prepared, for the honor of their country and for the
love of their ladies, to hold the field against all who might do them
the favor to run a course with them. On the other hand, a deafening
burst of cheering greeted the rival herald, who, advancing from the
other end of the lists, rolled forth the well-known titles of the five
famous warriors who had accepted the defiance.
"Faith, John," said the prince, "it sounds as though you were right.
Ha! my grace D'Armagnac, it seems that our friends on this side will not
grieve if our English champions lose the day."
"It may be so, sire," the Gascon nobleman answered. "I have little doubt
that in Smithfield or at Windsor an English crowd would favor their own
countrymen."
"By my faith! that's easily seen," said the prince, laughing, "for a few
score English archers at yonder end are bellowing as though they would
out-shout the mighty multitude. I fear that they will have little to
shout over this tourney, for my gold vase has small prospect of crossing
the water. What are the conditions, John?"
"They are to tilt singly not less than three courses, sire, and the
victory to rest with that party which shall have won the greater number
of courses, each pair continuing till one or other have the vantage. He
who carries himself best of the victors hath the prize, and he who is
judged best of the other party hath a jewelled clasp. Shall I order that
the nakirs sound, sire?"
The prince nodded, and the trumpets rang out, while the champions rode
forth one after the other, each meeting his opponent in the centre of
the lists. Sir William Beauchamp went down before the practiced lance
of the Captal de Buch. Sir Thomas Percy won the vantage over the Lord
of Mucident, and the Lord Audley struck Sir Perducas d'Albret from
the saddle. The burly De Clisson, however, restored the hopes of the
attackers by beating to the ground Sir Thomas Wake of Yorkshire. So far,
there was little to choose betwixt challengers and challenged.
"By Saint James of Santiago!" cried Don Pedro, with a tinge of color
upon his pale cheeks, "win who will, this has been a most notable
contest."
"Who comes next for England, John?" asked the prince in a voice which
quivered with excitement.
"Sir Nigel Loring of Hampshire, sire."
"Ha! he is a man of good courage, and skilled in the use of all
weapons."
"He is indeed, sire. But his eyes, like my own, are the worse for wars.
Yet he can tilt or play his part at hand-strokes as merrily as ever. It
was he, sire, who won the golden crown which Queen Philippa, your royal
mother, gave to be jousted for by all the knights of England after
the harrying of Calais. I have heard that at Twynham Castle there is a
buffet which groans beneath the weight of his prizes."
"I pray that my vase may join them," said the prince. "But here is the
cavalier of Germany, and by my soul! he looks like a man of great valor
and hardiness. Let them run their full three courses, for the issue is
over-great to hang upon one."
As the prince spoke, amid a loud flourish of trumpets and the shouting
of the Gascon party, the last of the assailants rode gallantly into the
lists. He was a man of great size, clad in black armor without blazonry
or ornament of any kind, for all worldly display was forbidden by the
rules of the military brotherhood to which he belonged. No plume or
nobloy fluttered from his plain tilting salade, and even his lance was
devoid of the customary banderole. A white mantle fluttered behind him,
upon the left side of which was marked the broad black cross picked
out with silver which was the well-known badge of the Teutonic Order.
Mounted upon a horse as large, as black, and as forbidding as himself,
he cantered slowly forward, with none of those prancings and gambades
with which a cavalier was accustomed to show his command over his
charger. Gravely and sternly he inclined his head to the prince, and
took his place at the further end of the arena.
He had scarce done so before Sir Nigel rode out from the holders'
enclosure, and galloping at full speed down the lists, drew his charger
up before the prince's stand with a jerk which threw it back upon
its haunches. With white armor, blazoned shield, and plume of
ostrich-feathers from his helmet, he carried himself in so jaunty and
joyous a fashion, with tossing pennon and curveting charger, that a
shout of applause ran the full circle of the arena. With the air of a
man who hastes to a joyous festival, he waved his lance in salute, and
reining the pawing horse round without permitting its fore-feet to touch
the ground, he hastened back to his station.
A great hush fell over the huge multitude as the two last champions
faced each other. A double issue seemed to rest upon their contest, for
their personal fame was at stake as well as their party's honor. Both
were famous warriors, but as their exploits had been performed in widely
sundered countries, they had never before been able to cross lances. A
course between such men would have been enough in itself to cause the
keenest interest, apart from its being the crisis which would decide who
should be the victors of the day. For a moment they waited—the German
sombre and collected, Sir Nigel quivering in every fibre with
eagerness and fiery resolution. Then, amid a long-drawn breath from
the spectators, the glove fell from the marshal's hand, and the two
steel-clad horsemen met like a thunderclap in front of the royal stand.
The German, though he reeled for an instant before the thrust of the
Englishman, struck his opponent so fairly upon the vizor that the laces
burst, the plumed helmet flew to pieces, and Sir Nigel galloped on down
the lists with his bald head shimmering in the sunshine. A thousand
waving scarves and tossing caps announced that the first bout had fallen
to the popular party.
The Hampshire knight was not a man to be disheartened by a reverse. He
spurred back to the pavilion, and was out in a few instants with another
helmet. The second course was so equal that the keenest judges could not
discern any vantage. Each struck fire from the other's shield, and each
endured the jarring shock as though welded to the horse beneath him. In
the final bout, however, Sir Nigel struck his opponent with so true an
aim that the point of the lance caught between the bars of his vizor and
tore the front of his helmet out, while the German, aiming somewhat
low, and half stunned by the shock, had the misfortune to strike his
adversary upon the thigh, a breach of the rules of the tilting-yard, by
which he not only sacrificed his chances of success, but would also
have forfeited his horse and his armor, had the English knight chosen
to claim them. A roar of applause from the English soldiers, with an
ominous silence from the vast crowd who pressed round the barriers,
announced that the balance of victory lay with the holders. Already the
ten champions had assembled in front of the prince to receive his award,
when a harsh bugle call from the further end of the lists drew all eyes
to a new and unexpected arrival.
End of Chapter XXIII �