The White Company
peasant sentry, who started off at the sight of them, yelling loudly to
his comrades. “Stop him, or we are undone!” cried Du Guesclin, and had
started to run, when Aylward's great war-bow twanged like a harp-string,
and the man fell forward upon his face, with twitching limbs and
clutching fingers. Within five paces of where he lay a narrow and
little-used door led out into the bailey. From beyond it came such a
Babel of hooting and screaming, horrible oaths and yet more horrible
laughter, that the stoutest heart might have shrunk from casting down
the frail barrier which faced them.
“Make straight for the keep!” said Du Guesclin, in a sharp, stern
whisper. “The two archers in front, the lady in the centre, a squire
on either side, while we three knights shall bide behind and beat back
those who press upon us. So! Now open the door, and God have us in his
holy keeping!”
For a few moments it seemed that their object would be attained without
danger, so swift and so silent had been their movements. They were
half-way across the bailey ere the frantic, howling peasants made a
movement to stop them. The few who threw themselves in their way were
overpowered or brushed aside, while the pursuers were beaten back by the
ready weapons of the three cavaliers. Unscathed they fought their way to
the door of the keep, and faced round upon the swarming mob, while the
squire thrust the great key into the lock.
“My God!” he cried, “it is the wrong key.”
“The wrong key!”
“Dolt, fool that I am! This is the key of the castle gate; the other
opens the keep. I must back for it!” He turned, with some wild intention
of retracing his steps, but at the instant a great jagged rock, hurled
by a brawny peasant, struck him full upon the ear, and he dropped
senseless to the ground.
“This is key enough for me!” quoth Hordle John, picking up the huge
stone, and hurling it against the door with all the strength of his
enormous body. The lock shivered, the wood smashed, the stone flew into
five pieces, but the iron clamps still held the door in its position.
Bending down, he thrust his great fingers under it, and with a heave
raised the whole mass of wood and iron from its hinges. For a moment it
tottered and swayed, and then, falling outward, buried him in its ruin,
while his comrades rushed into the dark archway which led to safety.
“Up the steps, Tiphaine!” cried Du Guesclin. “Now round, friends, and
beat them back!” The mob of peasants had surged in upon their heels, but
the two trustiest blades in Europe gleamed upon that narrow stair, and
four of their number dropped upon the threshold. The others gave back,
and gathered in a half circle round the open door, gnashing their teeth
and shaking their clenched hands at the defenders. The body of the
French squire had been dragged out by them and hacked to pieces. Three
or four others had pulled John from under the door, when he suddenly
bounded to his feet, and clutching one in either hand dashed them
together with such force that they fell senseless across each other upon
the ground. With a kick and a blow he freed himself from two others
who clung to him, and in a moment he was within the portal with his
comrades.
Yet their position was a desperate one. The peasants from far and near
had been assembled for this deed of vengeance, and not less than six
thousand were within or around the walls of the Chateau of Villefranche.
Ill armed and half starved, they were still desperate men, to whom
danger had lost all fears: for what was death that they should shun
it to cling to such a life as theirs? The castle was theirs, and the
roaring flames were spurting through the windows and flickering high
above the turrets on two sides of the quadrangle. From either side they
were sweeping down from room to room and from bastion to bastion in the
direction of the keep. Faced by an army, and girt in by fire, were six
men and one woman; but some of them were men so trained to danger and
so wise in war that even now the combat was less unequal than it seemed.
Courage and resource were penned in by desperation and numbers, while
the great yellow sheets of flame threw their lurid glare over the scene
of death.
“There is but space for two upon a step to give free play to our
sword-arms,” said Du Guesclin. “Do you stand with me, Nigel, upon the
lowest. France and England will fight together this night. Sir Otto, I
pray you to stand behind us with this young squire. The archers may go
higher yet and shoot over our heads. I would that we had our harness,
Nigel.”
“Often have I heard my dear Sir John Chandos say that a knight should
never, even when a guest, be parted from it. Yet it will be more honor
to us if we come well out of it. We have a vantage, since we see them
against the light and they can scarce see us. It seems to me that they
muster for an onslaught.”
“If we can but keep them in play,” said the Bohemian, “it is likely
that these flames may bring us succor if there be any true men in the
country.”
“Bethink you, my fair lord,” said Alleyne to Sir Nigel, “that we have
never injured these men, nor have we cause of quarrel against them.
Would it not be well, if but for the lady's sake, to speak them fair and
see if we may not come to honorable terms with them?”
“Not so, by St. Paul!” cried Sir Nigel. “It does not accord with mine
honor, nor shall it ever be said that I, a knight of England, was ready
to hold parley with men who have slain a fair lady and a holy priest.”
“As well hold parley with a pack of ravening wolves,” said the French
captain. “Ha! Notre Dame Du Guesclin! Saint Ives! Saint Ives!”
As he thundered forth his war-cry, the Jacks who had been gathering
before the black arch of the gateway rushed in madly in a desperate
effort to carry the staircase. Their leaders were a small man, dark in
the face, with his beard done up in two plaits, and another larger man,
very bowed in the shoulders, with a huge club studded with sharp nails
in his hand. The first had not taken three steps ere an arrow from
Aylward's bow struck him full in the chest, and he fell coughing and
spluttering across the threshold. The other rushed onwards, and breaking
between Du Guesclin and Sir Nigel he dashed out the brains of the
Bohemian with a single blow of his clumsy weapon. With three swords
through him he still struggled on, and had almost won his way through
them ere he fell dead upon the stair. Close at his heels came a hundred
furious peasants, who flung themselves again and again against the five
swords which confronted them. It was cut and parry and stab as quick as
eye could see or hand act. The door was piled with bodies, and the stone
floor was slippery with blood. The deep shout of Du Guesclin, the hard,
hissing breath of the pressing multitude, the clatter of steel, the
thud of falling bodies, and the screams of the stricken, made up such
a medley as came often in after years to break upon Alleyne's sleep.
Slowly and sullenly at last the throng drew off, with many a fierce
backward glance, while eleven of their number lay huddled in front of
the stair which they had failed to win.
“The dogs have had enough,” said Du Guesclin.
“By Saint Paul! there appear to be some very worthy and valiant persons
among them,” observed Sir Nigel. “They are men from whom, had they been
of better birth, much honor and advancement might be gained. Even as it
is, it is a great pleasure to have seen them. But what is this that they
are bringing forward?”
“It is as I feared,” growled Du Guesclin. “They will burn us out, since
they cannot win their way past us. Shoot straight and hard, archers;
for, by St. Ives! our good swords are of little use to us.”
As he spoke, a dozen men rushed forward, each screening himself behind a
huge fardel of brushwood. Hurling their burdens in one vast heap within
the portal, they threw burning torches upon the top of it. The wood
had been soaked in oil, for in an instant it was ablaze, and a long,
hissing, yellow flame licked over the heads of the defenders, and drove
them further up to the first floor of the keep. They had scarce reached
it, however, ere they found that the wooden joists and planks of the
flooring were already on fire. Dry and worm-eaten, a spark upon them
became a smoulder, and a smoulder a blaze. A choking smoke filled the
air, and the five could scarce grope their way to the staircase which
led up to the very summit of the square tower.
Strange was the scene which met their eyes from this eminence. Beneath
them on every side stretched the long sweep of peaceful country,
rolling plain, and tangled wood, all softened and mellowed in the silver
moonshine. No light, nor movement, nor any sign of human aid could be
seen, but far away the hoarse clangor of a heavy bell rose and fell upon
the wintry air. Beneath and around them blazed the huge fire, roaring
and crackling on every side of the bailey, and even as they looked the
two corner turrets fell in with a deafening crash, and the whole castle
was but a shapeless mass, spouting flames and smoke from every window
and embrasure. The great black tower upon which they stood rose like a
last island of refuge amid this sea of fire but the ominous crackling
and roaring below showed that it would not be long ere it was engulfed
also in the common ruin. At their very feet was the square courtyard,
crowded with the howling and dancing peasants, their fierce faces
upturned, their clenched hands waving, all drunk with bloodshed and with
vengeance. A yell of execration and a scream of hideous laughter burst
from the vast throng, as they saw the faces of the last survivors of
their enemies peering down at them from the height of the keep. They
still piled the brushwood round the base of the tower, and gambolled
hand in hand around the blaze, screaming out the doggerel lines which
had long been the watchword of the Jacquerie:
Cessez, cessez, gens d'armes et pietons,
De piller et manger le bonhomme
Qui de longtemps Jacques Bonhomme
Se nomme.
Their thin, shrill voices rose high above the roar of the flames and the
crash of the masonry, like the yelping of a pack of wolves who see their
quarry before them and know that they have well-nigh run him down.
“By my hilt!” said Aylward to John, “it is in my mind that we shall not
see Spain this journey. It is a great joy to me that I have placed
my feather-bed and other things of price with that worthy woman at
Lyndhurst, who will now have the use of them. I have thirteen arrows
yet, and if one of them fly unfleshed, then, by the twang of string! I
shall deserve my doom. First at him who flaunts with my lady's silken
frock. Clap in the clout, by God! though a hand's-breadth lower than
I had meant. Now for the rogue with the head upon his pike. Ha! to
the inch, John. When my eye is true, I am better at rovers than at
long-butts or hoyles. A good shoot for you also, John! The villain hath
fallen forward into the fire. But I pray you, John, to loose gently, and
not to pluck with the drawing-hand, for it is a trick that hath marred
many a fine bowman.”
Whilst the two archers were keeping up a brisk fire upon the mob beneath
them, Du Guesclin and his lady were consulting with Sir Nigel upon their
desperate situation.
“'Tis a strange end for one who has seen so many stricken fields,” said
the French chieftain. “For me one death is as another, but it is the
thought of my sweet lady which goes to my heart.”
“Nay, Bertrand, I fear it as little as you,” said she. “Had I my dearest
wish, it would be that we should go together.”
“Well answered, fair lady!” cried Sir Nigel. “And very sure I am that my
own sweet wife would have said the same. If the end be now come, I have