Ivanhoe: A Romance
merry England—the hospitable, the generous, the free, where so many are
ready to peril their lives for honour, there will not be found one to
fight for justice. But it is enough that I challenge the trial by
combat—there lies my gage.”
She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before
the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity, which
excited universal surprise and admiration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
—There I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of martial daring.
RICHARD II
Even Lucas Beaumanoir himself was affected by the mien and appearance
of Rebecca. He was not originally a cruel or even a severe man; but
with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense
of duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life
which he pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed
necessity of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy, which he
conceived peculiarly incumbent on him. His features relaxed in their
usual severity as he gazed upon the beautiful creature before him,
alone, unfriended, and defending herself with so much spirit and
courage. He crossed himself twice, as doubting whence arose the
unwonted softening of a heart, which on such occasions used to resemble
in hardness the steel of his sword. At length he spoke.
“Damsel,” he said, “if the pity I feel for thee arise from any practice
thine evil arts have made on me, great is thy guilt. But I rather judge
it the kinder feelings of nature, which grieves that so goodly a form
should be a vessel of perdition. Repent, my daughter—confess thy
witchcrafts—turn thee from thine evil faith—embrace this holy emblem,
and all shall yet be well with thee here and hereafter. In some
sisterhood of the strictest order, shalt thou have time for prayer and
fitting penance, and that repentance not to be repented of. This do and
live—what has the law of Moses done for thee that thou shouldest die
for it?”
“It was the law of my fathers,” said Rebecca; “it was delivered in
thunders and in storms upon the mountain of Sinai, in cloud and in
fire. This, if ye are Christians, ye believe—it is, you say, recalled;
but so my teachers have not taught me.”
“Let our chaplain,” said Beaumanoir, “stand forth, and tell this
obstinate infidel—”
“Forgive the interruption,” said Rebecca, meekly; “I am a maiden,
unskilled to dispute for my religion, but I can die for it, if it be
God’s will.—Let me pray your answer to my demand of a champion.”
“Give me her glove,” said Beaumanoir. “This is indeed,” he continued,
as he looked at the flimsy texture and slender fingers, “a slight and
frail gage for a purpose so deadly!—Seest thou, Rebecca, as this thin
and light glove of thine is to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is
thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our Order which thou hast
defied.”
“Cast my innocence into the scale,” answered Rebecca, “and the glove of
silk shall outweigh the glove of iron.”
“Then thou dost persist in thy refusal to confess thy guilt, and in
that bold challenge which thou hast made?”
“I do persist, noble sir,” answered Rebecca.
“So be it then, in the name of Heaven,” said the Grand Master; “and may
God show the right!”
“Amen,” replied the Preceptors around him, and the word was deeply
echoed by the whole assembly.
“Brethren,” said Beaumanoir, “you are aware that we might well have
refused to this woman the benefit of the trial by combat—but though a
Jewess and an unbeliever, she is also a stranger and defenceless, and
God forbid that she should ask the benefit of our mild laws, and that
it should be refused to her. Moreover, we are knights and soldiers as
well as men of religion, and shame it were to us upon any pretence, to
refuse proffered combat. Thus, therefore, stands the case. Rebecca, the
daughter of Isaac of York, is, by many frequent and suspicious
circumstances, defamed of sorcery practised on the person of a noble
knight of our holy Order, and hath challenged the combat in proof of
her innocence. To whom, reverend brethren, is it your opinion that we
should deliver the gage of battle, naming him, at the same time, to be
our champion on the field?”
“To Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom it chiefly concerns,” said the
Preceptor of Goodalricke, “and who, moreover, best knows how the truth
stands in this matter.”
“But if,” said the Grand Master, “our brother Brian be under the
influence of a charm or a spell—we speak but for the sake of
precaution, for to the arm of none of our holy Order would we more
willingly confide this or a more weighty cause.”
“Reverend father,” answered the Preceptor of Goodalricke, “no spell can
effect the champion who comes forward to fight for the judgment of
God.”
“Thou sayest right, brother,” said the Grand Master. “Albert Malvoisin,
give this gage of battle to Brian de Bois-Guilbert.—It is our charge to
thee, brother,” he continued, addressing himself to Bois-Guilbert,
“that thou do thy battle manfully, nothing doubting that the good cause
shall triumph.—And do thou, Rebecca, attend, that we assign thee the
third day from the present to find a champion.”
“That is but brief space,” answered Rebecca, “for a stranger, who is
also of another faith, to find one who will do battle, wagering life
and honour for her cause, against a knight who is called an approved
soldier.”
“We may not extend it,” answered the Grand Master; “the field must be
foughten in our own presence, and divers weighty causes call us on the
fourth day from hence.”
“God’s will be done!” said Rebecca; “I put my trust in Him, to whom an
instant is as effectual to save as a whole age.”
“Thou hast spoken well, damsel,” said the Grand Master; “but well know
we who can array himself like an angel of light. It remains but to name
a fitting place of combat, and, if it so hap, also of execution.—Where
is the Preceptor of this house?”
Albert Malvoisin, still holding Rebecca’s glove in his hand, was
speaking to Bois-Guilbert very earnestly, but in a low voice.
“How!” said the Grand Master, “will he not receive the gage?”
“He will—he doth, most Reverend Father,” said Malvoisin, slipping the
glove under his own mantle. “And for the place of combat, I hold the
fittest to be the lists of Saint George belonging to this Preceptory,
and used by us for military exercise.”
“It is well,” said the Grand Master.—“Rebecca, in those lists shalt
thou produce thy champion; and if thou failest to do so, or if thy
champion shall be discomfited by the judgment of God, thou shalt then
die the death of a sorceress, according to doom.—Let this our judgment
be recorded, and the record read aloud, that no one may pretend
ignorance.”
One of the chaplains, who acted as clerks to the chapter, immediately
engrossed the order in a huge volume, which contained the proceedings
of the Templar Knights when solemnly assembled on such occasions; and
when he had finished writing, the other read aloud the sentence of the
Grand Master, which, when translated from the Norman-French in which it
was couched, was expressed as follows.—
“Rebecca, a Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, being attainted of
sorcery, seduction, and other damnable practices, practised on a Knight
of the most Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, doth deny the same; and
saith, that the testimony delivered against her this day is false,
wicked, and disloyal; and that by lawful ‘essoine’ 54 of her body as
being unable to combat in her own behalf, she doth offer, by a champion
instead thereof, to avouch her case, he performing his loyal ‘devoir’
in all knightly sort, with such arms as to gage of battle do fully
appertain, and that at her peril and cost. And therewith she proffered
her gage. And the gage having been delivered to the noble Lord and
Knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of the Holy Order of the Temple of
Zion, he was appointed to do this battle, in behalf of his Order and
himself, as injured and impaired by the practices of the appellant.
Wherefore the most reverend Father and puissant Lord, Lucas Marquis of
Beaumanoir, did allow of the said challenge, and of the said ‘essoine’
of the appellant’s body, and assigned the third day for the said
combat, the place being the enclosure called the lists of Saint George,
near to the Preceptory of Templestowe. And the Grand Master appoints
the appellant to appear there by her champion, on pain of doom, as a
person convicted of sorcery or seduction; and also the defendant so to
appear, under the penalty of being held and adjudged recreant in case
of default; and the noble Lord and most reverend Father aforesaid
appointed the battle to be done in his own presence, and according to
all that is commendable and profitable in such a case. And may God aid
the just cause!”
“Amen!” said the Grand Master; and the word was echoed by all around.
Rebecca spoke not, but she looked up to heaven, and, folding her hands,
remained for a minute without change of attitude. She then modestly
reminded the Grand Master, that she ought to be permitted some
opportunity of free communication with her friends, for the purpose of
making her condition known to them, and procuring, if possible, some
champion to fight in her behalf.
“It is just and lawful,” said the Grand Master; “choose what messenger
thou shalt trust, and he shall have free communication with thee in thy
prison-chamber.”
“Is there,” said Rebecca, “any one here, who, either for love of a good
cause, or for ample hire, will do the errand of a distressed being?”
All were silent; for none thought it safe, in the presence of the Grand
Master, to avow any interest in the calumniated prisoner, lest he
should be suspected of leaning towards Judaism. Not even the prospect
of reward, far less any feelings of compassion alone, could surmount
this apprehension.
Rebecca stood for a few moments in indescribable anxiety, and then
exclaimed, “Is it really thus?—And, in English land, am I to be
deprived of the poor chance of safety which remains to me, for want of
an act of charity which would not be refused to the worst criminal?”
Higg, the son of Snell, at length replied, “I am but a maimed man, but
that I can at all stir or move was owing to her charitable
assistance.—I will do thine errand,” he added, addressing Rebecca, “as
well as a crippled object can, and happy were my limbs fleet enough to
repair the mischief done by my tongue. Alas! when I boasted of thy
charity, I little thought I was leading thee into danger!”
“God,” said Rebecca, “is the disposer of all. He can turn back the
captivity of Judah, even by the weakest instrument. To execute his
message the snail is as sure a messenger as the falcon. Seek out Isaac
of York—here is that will pay for horse and man—let him have this
scroll.—I know not if it be of Heaven the spirit which inspires me, but
most truly do I judge that I am not to die this death, and that a
champion will be raised up for me. Farewell!—Life and death are in thy
haste.”
The peasant took the scroll, which contained only a few lines in
Hebrew. Many of the crowd would have dissuaded him from touching a
document so suspicious; but Higg was resolute in the service of his
benefactress. She had saved his body, he said, and he was confident she
did not mean to peril his soul.
“I will get me,” he said, “my neighbour Buthan’s good capul, 55 and I
will be at York within as brief space as man and beast may.”
But as it fortuned, he had no occasion to go so far, for within a
quarter of a mile from the gate of the Preceptory he met with two
riders, whom, by their dress and their huge yellow caps, he knew to be
Jews; and, on approaching more nearly, discovered that one of them was
his ancient employer, Isaac of York. The other was the Rabbi Ben