The White Company
“Certes there is. I would fain know, fair lady, how all things are at
Twynham Castle, and above all how my sweet lady employs herself.”
“To answer this I would fain lay hand upon one whose thoughts turn
strongly to this castle which you have named. Nay, my Lord Loring, it is
whispered to me that there is another here who hath thought more deeply
of it than you.”
“Thought more of mine own home?” cried Sir Nigel. “Lady, I fear that in
this matter at least you are mistaken.”
“Not so, Sir Nigel. Come hither, young man, young English squire with
the gray eyes! Now give me your hand, and place it here across my brow,
that I may see that which you have seen. What is this that rises before
me? Mist, mist, rolling mist with a square black tower above it. See it
shreds out, it thins, it rises, and there lies a castle in green plain,
with the sea beneath it, and a great church within a bow-shot. There are
two rivers which run through the meadows, and between them lie the tents
of the besiegers.”
“The besiegers!” cried Alleyne, Ford, and Sir Nigel, all three in a
breath.
“Yes, truly, and they press hard upon the castle, for they are an
exceeding multitude and full of courage. See how they storm and rage
against the gate, while some rear ladders, and others, line after line,
sweep the walls with their arrows. There are many leaders who shout and
beckon, and one, a tall man with a golden beard, who stands before the
gate stamping his foot and hallooing them on, as a pricker doth the
hounds. But those in the castle fight bravely. There is a woman, two
women, who stand upon the walls, and give heart to the men-at-arms. They
shower down arrows, darts and great stones. Ah! they have struck down
the tall leader, and the others give back. The mist thickens and I can
see no more.”
“By Saint Paul!” said Sir Nigel, “I do not think that there can be any
such doings at Christchurch, and I am very easy of the fortalice so long
as my sweet wife hangs the key of the outer bailey at the head of her
bed. Yet I will not deny that you have pictured the castle as well as I
could have done myself, and I am full of wonderment at all that I have
heard and seen.”
“I would, Lady Tiphaine,” cried the Lady Rochefort, “that you would use
your power to tell me what hath befallen my golden bracelet which I wore
when hawking upon the second Sunday of Advent, and have never set eyes
upon since.”
“Nay, lady,” said du Guesclin, “it does not befit so great and wondrous
a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautiful
chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with the
blessing of God, you shall have a worthy answer.”
“Then I would fain ask,” cried one of the French squires, “as to which
may hope to conquer in these wars betwixt the English and ourselves.”
“Both will conquer and each will hold its own,” answered the Lady
Tiphaine.
“Then we shall still hold Gascony and Guienne?” cried Sir Nigel.
The lady shook her head. “French land, French blood, French speech,” she
answered. “They are French, and France shall have them.”
“But not Bordeaux?” cried Sir Nigel excitedly.
“Bordeaux also is for France.”
“But Calais?”
“Calais too.”
“Woe worth me then, and ill hail to these evil words! If Bordeaux and
Calais be gone, then what is left for England?”
“It seems indeed that there are evil times coming upon your country,”
said Du Guesclin. “In our fondest hopes we never thought to hold
Bordeaux. By Saint Ives! this news hath warmed the heart within me. Our
dear country will then be very great in the future, Tiphaine?”
“Great, and rich, and beautiful,” she cried. “Far down the course of
time I can see her still leading the nations, a wayward queen among the
peoples, great in war, but greater in peace, quick in thought, deft in
action, with her people's will for her sole monarch, from the sands of
Calais to the blue seas of the south.”
“Ha!” cried Du Guesclin, with his eyes flashing in triumph, “you hear
her, Sir Nigel?--and she never yet said word which was not sooth.”
The English knight shook his head moodily. “What of my own poor
country?” said he. “I fear, lady, that what you have said bodes but
small good for her.”
The lady sat with parted lips, and her breath came quick and fast. “My
God!” she cried, “what is this that is shown me? Whence come they, these
peoples, these lordly nations, these mighty countries which rise up
before me? I look beyond, and others rise, and yet others, far and
farther to the shores of the uttermost waters. They crowd! They swarm!
The world is given to them, and it resounds with the clang of their
hammers and the ringing of their church bells. They call them many
names, and they rule them this way or that but they are all English,
for I can hear the voices of the people. On I go, and onwards over seas
where man hath never yet sailed, and I see a great land under new
stars and a stranger sky, and still the land is England. Where have her
children not gone? What have they not done? Her banner is planted on
ice. Her banner is scorched in the sun. She lies athwart the lands, and
her shadow is over the seas. Bertrand, Bertrand! we are undone for the
buds of her bud are even as our choicest flower!” Her voice rose into
a wild cry, and throwing up her arms she sank back white and nerveless
into the deep oaken chair.
“It is over,” said Du Guesclin moodily, as he raised her drooping head
with his strong brown hand. “Wine for the lady, squire! The blessed hour
of sight hath passed.”
CHAPTER XXX. HOW THE BRUSHWOOD MEN CAME TO THE CHATEAU OF VILLEFRANCHE.
It was late ere Alleyne Edricson, having carried Sir Nigel the goblet
of spiced wine which it was his custom to drink after the curling of his
hair, was able at last to seek his chamber. It was a stone-flagged room
upon the second floor, with a bed in a recess for him, and two smaller
pallets on the other side, on which Aylward and Hordle John were already
snoring. Alleyne had knelt down to his evening orisons, when there came
a tap at his door, and Ford entered with a small lamp in his hand. His
face was deadly pale, and his hand shook until the shadows flickered up
and down the wall.
“What is it, Ford?” cried Alleyne, springing to his feet.
“I can scarce tell you,” said he, sitting down on the side of the couch,
and resting his chin upon his hand. “I know not what to say or what to
think.”
“Has aught befallen you, then?”
“Yes, or I have been slave to my own fancy. I tell you, lad, that I am
all undone, like a fretted bow-string. Hark hither, Alleyne! it
cannot be that you have forgotten little Tita, the daughter of the old
glass-stainer at Bordeaux?”
“I remember her well.”
“She and I, Alleyne, broke the lucky groat together ere we parted, and
she wears my ring upon her finger. 'Caro mio,' quoth she when last we
parted, 'I shall be near thee in the wars, and thy danger will be my
danger.' Alleyne, as God is my help, as I came up the stairs this night
I saw her stand before me, her face in tears, her hands out as though in
warning--I saw it, Alleyne, even as I see those two archers upon their
couches. Our very finger-tips seemed to meet, ere she thinned away like
a mist in the sunshine.”
“I would not give overmuch thought to it,” answered Alleyne. “Our minds
will play us strange pranks, and bethink you that these words of the
Lady Tiphaine Du Guesclin have wrought upon us and shaken us.”
Ford shook his head. “I saw little Tita as clearly as though I were back
at the Rue des Apotres at Bordeaux,” said he. “But the hour is late, and
I must go.”
“Where do you sleep, then?”
“In the chamber above you. May the saints be with us all!” He rose
from the couch and left the chamber, while Alleyne could hear his feet
sounding upon the winding stair. The young squire walked across to the
window and gazed out at the moonlit landscape, his mind absorbed by
the thought of the Lady Tiphaine, and of the strange words that she
had spoken as to what was going forward at Castle Twynham. Leaning his
elbows upon the stonework, he was deeply plunged in reverie, when in a
moment his thoughts were brought back to Villefranche and to the scene
before him.
The window at which he stood was in the second floor of that portion of
the castle which was nearest to the keep. In front lay the broad moat,
with the moon lying upon its surface, now clear and round, now drawn
lengthwise as the breeze stirred the waters. Beyond, the plain sloped
down to a thick wood, while further to the left a second wood shut
out the view. Between the two an open glade stretched, silvered in the
moonshine, with the river curving across the lower end of it.
As he gazed, he saw of a sudden a man steal forth from the wood into the
open clearing. He walked with his head sunk, his shoulders curved, and
his knees bent, as one who strives hard to remain unseen. Ten paces from
the fringe of trees he glanced around, and waving his hand he crouched
down, and was lost to sight among a belt of furze-bushes. After him
there came a second man, and after him a third, a fourth, and a fifth
stealing across the narrow open space and darting into the shelter of
the brushwood. Nine-and-seventy Alleyne counted of these dark figures
flitting across the line of the moonlight. Many bore huge burdens upon
their backs, though what it was that they carried he could not tell at
the distance. Out of the one wood and into the other they passed, all
with the same crouching, furtive gait, until the black bristle of trees
had swallowed up the last of them.
For a moment Alleyne stood in the window, still staring down at the
silent forest, uncertain as to what he should think of these midnight
walkers. Then he bethought him that there was one beside him who was
fitter to judge on such a matter. His fingers had scarce rested upon
Aylward's shoulder ere the bowman was on his feet, with his hand
outstretched to his sword.
“Qui va?” he cried. “Hola! mon petit. By my hilt! I thought there had
been a camisade. What then, mon gar.?”
“Come hither by the window, Aylward,” said Alleyne. “I have seen
four-score men pass from yonder shaw across the glade, and nigh every
man of them had a great burden on his back. What think you of it?”
“I think nothing of it, mon camarade! There are as many masterless folk
in this country as there are rabbits on Cowdray Down, and there are many
who show their faces by night but would dance in a hempen collar if
they stirred forth in the day. On all the French marches are droves
of outcasts, reivers, spoilers, and draw-latches, of whom I judge that
these are some, though I marvel that they should dare to come so nigh
to the castle of the seneschal. All seems very quiet now,” he added,
peering out of the window.
“They are in the further wood,” said Alleyne.
“And there they may bide. Back to rest, mon petit; for, by my hilt! each
day now will bring its own work. Yet it would be well to shoot the bolt
in yonder door when one is in strange quarters. So!” He threw himself
down upon his pallet and in an instant was fast asleep.
It might have been about three o'clock in the morning when Alleyne was
aroused from a troubled sleep by a low cry or exclamation. He listened,
but, as he heard no more, he set it down as the challenge of the guard
upon the walls, and dropped off to sleep once more. A few minutes later
he was disturbed by a gentle creaking of his own door, as though some
one were pushing cautiously against it, and immediately afterwards he
heard the soft thud of cautious footsteps upon the stair which led
to the room above, followed by a confused noise and a muffled groan.
Alleyne sat up on his couch with all his nerves in a tingle, uncertain
whether these sounds might come from a simple cause--some sick archer