The White Company
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-cock. 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.”
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 wench, 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, seamen 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 towards
the abbey, or there would come a knot of 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 wench.”
“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 wench 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 wench must be willing, or the man must be standing up against me,
else, by these ten finger bones! 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