The White Company
with Mark Shaw and ranged themselves behind Sir Claude. Amid the
hootings and hissings of their comrades, they marched off together to
the Gascon's hut, while the main body broke up their meeting and set
cheerily to work packing their possessions, furbishing their weapons,
and preparing for the march which lay before them. Over the Tarn and the
Garonne, through the vast quagmires of Armagnac, past the swift-flowing
Losse, and so down the long valley of the Adour, there was many a
long league to be crossed ere they could join themselves to that dark
war-cloud which was drifting slowly southwards to the line of the snowy
peaks, beyond which the banner of England had never yet been seen.
CHAPTER XXXIII. HOW THE ARMY MADE THE PASSAGE OF RONCESVALLES.
The whole vast plain of Gascony and of Languedoc is an arid and
profitless expanse in winter save where the swift-flowing Adour and her
snow-fed tributaries, the Louts, the Oloron and the Pau, run down to
the sea of Biscay. South of the Adour the jagged line of mountains which
fringe the sky-line send out long granite claws, running down into the
lowlands and dividing them into “gaves” or stretches of valley. Hillocks
grow into hills, and hills into mountains, each range overlying its
neighbor, until they soar up in the giant chain which raises its
spotless and untrodden peaks, white and dazzling, against the pale blue
wintry sky.
A quiet land is this--a land where the slow-moving Basque, with his flat
biretta-cap, his red sash and his hempen sandals, tills his scanty farm
or drives his lean flock to their hill-side pastures. It is the country
of the wolf and the isard, of the brown bear and the mountain-goat, a
land of bare rock and of rushing water. Yet here it was that the will of
a great prince had now assembled a gallant army; so that from the Adour
to the passes of Navarre the barren valleys and wind-swept wastes were
populous with soldiers and loud with the shouting of orders and the
neighing of horses. For the banners of war had been flung to the wind
once more, and over those glistening peaks was the highway along which
Honor pointed in an age when men had chosen her as their guide.
And now all was ready for the enterprise. From Dax to St. Jean
Pied-du-Port the country was mottled with the white tents of Gascons,
Aquitanians and English, all eager for the advance. From all sides the
free companions had trooped in, until not less than twelve thousand of
these veteran troops were cantoned along the frontiers of Navarre. From
England had arrived the prince's brother, the Duke of Lancaster, with
four hundred knights in his train and a strong company of archers. Above
all, an heir to the throne had been born in Bordeaux, and the prince
might leave his spouse with an easy mind, for all was well with mother
and with child.
The keys of the mountain passes still lay in the hands of the shifty and
ignoble Charles of Navarre, who had chaffered and bargained both with
the English and with the Spanish, taking money from the one side to hold
them open and from the other to keep them sealed. The mallet hand of
Edward, however, had shattered all the schemes and wiles of the plotter.
Neither entreaty nor courtly remonstrance came from the English prince;
but Sir Hugh Calverley passed silently over the border with his company,
and the blazing walls of the two cities of Miranda and Puenta de la
Reyna warned the unfaithful monarch that there were other metals besides
gold, and that he was dealing with a man to whom it was unsafe to lie.
His price was paid, his objections silenced, and the mountain gorges lay
open to the invaders. From the Feast of the Epiphany there was mustering
and massing, until, in the first week of February--three days after the
White Company joined the army--the word was given for a general advance
through the defile of Roncesvalles. At five in the cold winter's morning
the bugles were blowing in the hamlet of St. Jean Pied-du-Port, and by
six Sir Nigel's Company, three hundred strong, were on their way for the
defile, pushing swiftly in the dim light up the steep curving road; for
it was the prince's order that they should be the first to pass through,
and that they should remain on guard at the further end until the whole
army had emerged from the mountains. Day was already breaking in the
east, and the summits of the great peaks had turned rosy red, while the
valleys still lay in the shadow, when they found themselves with the
cliffs on either hand and the long, rugged pass stretching away before
them.
Sir Nigel rode his great black war-horse at the head of his archers,
dressed in full armor, with Black Simon bearing his banner behind him,
while Alleyne at his bridle-arm carried his blazoned shield and his
well-steeled ashen spear. A proud and happy man was the knight, and many
a time he turned in his saddle to look at the long column of bowmen who
swung swiftly along behind him.
“By Saint Paul! Alleyne,” said he, “this pass is a very perilous place,
and I would that the King of Navarre had held it against us, for it
would have been a very honorable venture had it fallen to us to win a
passage. I have heard the minstrels sing of one Sir Roland who was slain
by the infidels in these very parts.”
“If it please you, my fair lord,” said Black Simon, “I know something
of these parts, for I have twice served a term with the King of Navarre.
There is a hospice of monks yonder, where you may see the roof among the
trees, and there it was that Sir Roland was slain. The village upon the
left is Orbaiceta, and I know a house therein where the right wine of
Jurancon is to be bought, if it would please you to quaff a morning
cup.”
“There is smoke yonder upon the right.”
“That is a village named Les Aldudes, and I know a hostel there also
where the wine is of the best. It is said that the inn-keeper hath a
buried treasure, and I doubt not, my fair lord, that if you grant me
leave I could prevail upon him to tell us where he hath hid it.”
“Nay, nay, Simon,” said Sir Nigel curtly, “I pray you to forget these
free companion tricks. Ha! Edricson, I see that you stare about you, and
in good sooth these mountains must seem wondrous indeed to one who hath
but seen Butser or the Portsdown hill.”
The broken and rugged road had wound along the crests of low hills,
with wooded ridges on either side of it over which peeped the loftier
mountains, the distant Peak of the South and the vast Altabisca, which
towered high above them and cast its black shadow from left to right
across the valley. From where they now stood they could look forward
down a long vista of beech woods and jagged rock-strewn wilderness, all
white with snow, to where the pass opened out upon the uplands beyond.
Behind them they could still catch a glimpse of the gray plains of
Gascony, and could see her rivers gleaming like coils of silver in the
sunshine. As far as eye could see from among the rocky gorges and the
bristles of the pine woods there came the quick twinkle and glitter of
steel, while the wind brought with it sudden distant bursts of martial
music from the great host which rolled by every road and by-path towards
the narrow pass of Roncesvalles. On the cliffs on either side might also
be seen the flash of arms and the waving of pennons where the force of
Navarre looked down upon the army of strangers who passed through their
territories.
“By Saint Paul!” said Sir Nigel, blinking up at them, “I think that
we have much to hope for from these cavaliers, for they cluster very
thickly upon our flanks. Pass word to the men, Aylward, that they
unsling their bows, for I have no doubt that there are some very
worthy gentlemen yonder who may give us some opportunity for honorable
advancement.”
“I hear that the prince hath the King of Navarre as hostage,” said
Alleyne, “and it is said that he hath sworn to put him to death if there
be any attack upon us.”
“It was not so that war was made when good King Edward first turned his
hand to it,” said Sir Nigel sadly. “Ah! Alleyne, I fear that you will
never live to see such things, for the minds of men are more set upon
money and gain than of old. By Saint Paul! it was a noble sight when two
great armies would draw together upon a certain day, and all who had
a vow would ride forth to discharge themselves of it. What noble
spear-runnings have I not seen, and even in an humble way had a part in,
when cavaliers would run a course for the easing of their souls and for
the love of their ladies! Never a bad word have I for the French, for,
though I have ridden twenty times up to their array, I have never yet
failed to find some very gentle and worthy knight or squire who was
willing to do what he might to enable me to attempt some small feat of
arms. Then, when all cavaliers had been satisfied, the two armies would
come to hand-strokes, and fight right merrily until one or other had the
vantage. By Saint Paul! it was not our wont in those days to pay gold
for the opening of passes, nor would we hold a king as hostage lest
his people come to thrusts with us. In good sooth, if the war is to be
carried out in such a fashion, then it is grief to me that I ever came
away from Castle Twynham, for I would not have left my sweet lady had I
not thought that there were deeds of arms to be done.”
“But surely, my fair lord,” said Alleyne, “you have done some great
feats of arms since we left the Lady Loring.”
“I cannot call any to mind,” answered Sir Nigel.
“There was the taking of the sea-rovers, and the holding of the keep
against the Jacks.”
“Nay, nay,” said the knight, “these were not feats of arms, but mere
wayside ventures and the chances of travel. By Saint Paul! if it were
not that these hills are over-steep for Pommers, I would ride to these
cavaliers of Navarre and see if there were not some among them who would
help me to take this patch from mine eye. It is a sad sight to see this
very fine pass, which my own Company here could hold against an army,
and yet to ride through it with as little profit as though it were the
lane from my kennels to the Avon.”
All morning Sir Nigel rode in a very ill-humor, with his Company
tramping behind him. It was a toilsome march over broken ground and
through snow, which came often as high as the knee, yet ere the sun had
begun to sink they had reached the spot where the gorge opens out on to
the uplands of Navarre, and could see the towers of Pampeluna jutting
up against the southern sky-line. Here the Company were quartered in a
scattered mountain hamlet, and Alleyne spent the day looking down
upon the swarming army which poured with gleam of spears and flaunt of
standards through the narrow pass.
“Hola, mon gar.,” said Aylward, seating himself upon a boulder by his
side. “This is indeed a fine sight upon which it is good to look, and a
man might go far ere he would see so many brave men and fine horses.
By my hilt! our little lord is wroth because we have come peacefully
through the passes, but I will warrant him that we have fighting
enow ere we turn our faces northward again. It is said that there are
four-score thousand men behind the King of Spain, with Du Guesclin and
all the best lances of France, who have sworn to shed their heart's
blood ere this Pedro come again to the throne.”
“Yet our own army is a great one,” said Alleyne.
“Nay, there are but seven-and-twenty thousand men. Chandos hath
persuaded the prince to leave many behind, and indeed I think that he is
right, for there is little food and less water in these parts for which
we are bound. A man without his meat or a horse without his fodder is
like a wet bow-string, fit for little. But voila, mon petit, here comes
Chandos and his company, and there is many a pensil and banderole among