The White Company
yonder squadrons which show that the best blood of England is riding
under his banners.”
Whilst Aylward had been speaking, a strong column of archers had defiled
through the pass beneath them. They were followed by a banner-bearer
who held high the scarlet wedge upon a silver field which proclaimed the
presence of the famous warrior. He rode himself within a spear's-length
of his standard, clad from neck to foot in steel, but draped in the long
linen gown or parement which was destined to be the cause of his death.
His plumed helmet was carried behind him by his body-squire, and his
head was covered by a small purple cap, from under which his snow-white
hair curled downwards to his shoulders. With his long beak-like nose and
his single gleaming eye, which shone brightly from under a thick tuft
of grizzled brow, he seemed to Alleyne to have something of the look
of some fierce old bird of prey. For a moment he smiled, as his eye lit
upon the banner of the five roses waving from the hamlet; but his course
lay for Pampeluna, and he rode on after the archers.
Close at his heels came sixteen squires, all chosen from the highest
families, and behind them rode twelve hundred English knights, with
gleam of steel and tossing of plumes, their harness jingling, their long
straight swords clanking against their stirrup-irons, and the beat of
their chargers' hoofs like the low deep roar of the sea upon the shore.
Behind them marched six hundred Cheshire and Lancashire archers, bearing
the badge of the Audleys, followed by the famous Lord Audley himself,
with the four valiant squires, Dutton of Dutton, Delves of Doddington,
Fowlehurst of Crewe, and Hawkestone of Wainehill, who had all won such
glory at Poictiers. Two hundred heavily-armed cavalry rode behind the
Audley standard, while close at their heels came the Duke of Lancaster
with a glittering train, heralds tabarded with the royal arms riding
three deep upon cream-colored chargers in front of him. On either side
of the young prince rode the two seneschals of Aquitaine, Sir Guiscard
d'Angle and Sir Stephen Cossington, the one bearing the banner of the
province and the other that of Saint George. Away behind him as far as
eye could reach rolled the far-stretching, unbroken river of steel--rank
after rank and column after column, with waving of plumes, glitter of
arms, tossing of guidons, and flash and flutter of countless armorial
devices. All day Alleyne looked down upon the changing scene, and all
day the old bowman stood by his elbow, pointing out the crests of famous
warriors and the arms of noble houses. Here were the gold mullets of the
Pakingtons, the sable and ermine of the Mackworths, the scarlet bars of
the Wakes, the gold and blue of the Grosvenors, the cinque-foils of
the Cliftons, the annulets of the Musgraves, the silver pinions of the
Beauchamps, the crosses of the Molineaux, the bloody chevron of the
Woodhouses, the red and silver of the Worsleys, the swords of the
Clarks, the boars'-heads of the Lucies, the crescents of the Boyntons,
and the wolf and dagger of the Lipscombs. So through the sunny winter
day the chivalry of England poured down through the dark pass of
Roncesvalles to the plains of Spain.
It was on a Monday that the Duke of Lancaster's division passed safely
through the Pyrenees. On the Tuesday there was a bitter frost, and the
ground rung like iron beneath the feet of the horses; yet ere evening
the prince himself, with the main battle of his army, had passed the
gorge and united with his vanguard at Pampeluna. With him rode the King
of Majorca, the hostage King of Navarre, and the fierce Don Pedro of
Spain, whose pale blue eyes gleamed with a sinister light as they rested
once more upon the distant peaks of the land which had disowned him.
Under the royal banners rode many a bold Gascon baron and many a
hot-blooded islander. Here were the high stewards of Aquitaine, of
Saintonge, of La Rochelle, of Quercy, of Limousin, of Agenois, of
Poitou, and of Bigorre, with the banners and musters of their provinces.
Here also were the valiant Earl of Angus, Sir Thomas Banaster with his
garter over his greave, Sir Nele Loring, second cousin to Sir Nigel,
and a long column of Welsh footmen who marched under the red banner
of Merlin. From dawn to sundown the long train wound through the pass,
their breath reeking up upon the frosty air like the steam from a
cauldron.
The weather was less keen upon the Wednesday, and the rear-guard
made good their passage, with the bombards and the wagon-train. Free
companions and Gascons made up this portion of the army to the number of
ten thousand men. The fierce Sir Hugh Calverley, with his yellow mane,
and the rugged Sir Robert Knolles, with their war-hardened and veteran
companies of English bowmen, headed the long column; while behind them
came the turbulent bands of the Bastard of Breteuil, Nandon de Bagerant,
one-eyed Camus, Black Ortingo, La Nuit and others whose very names seem
to smack of hard hands and ruthless deeds. With them also were the
pick of the Gascon chivalry--the old Duc d'Armagnac, his nephew Lord
d'Albret, brooding and scowling over his wrongs, the giant Oliver de
Clisson, the Captal de Buch, pink of knighthood, the sprightly Sir
Perducas d'Albret, the red-bearded Lord d'Esparre, and a long train of
needy and grasping border nobles, with long pedigrees and short purses,
who had come down from their hill-side strongholds, all hungering for
the spoils and the ransoms of Spain. By the Thursday morning the whole
army was encamped in the Vale of Pampeluna, and the prince had called
his council to meet him in the old palace of the ancient city of
Navarre.
CHAPTER XXXIV. HOW THE COMPANY MADE SPORT IN THE VALE OF PAMPELUNA.
Whilst the council was sitting in Pampeluna the White Company, having
encamped in a neighboring valley, close to the companies of La Nuit and
of Black Ortingo, were amusing themselves with sword-play, wrestling,
and shooting at the shields, which they had placed upon the hillside
to serve them as butts. The younger archers, with their coats of mail
thrown aside, their brown or flaxen hair tossing in the wind, and their
jerkins turned back to give free play to their brawny chests and arms,
stood in lines, each loosing his shaft in turn, while Johnston, Aylward,
Black Simon, and half-a-score of the elders lounged up and down with
critical eyes, and a word of rough praise or of curt censure for the
marksmen. Behind stood knots of Gascon and Brabant crossbowmen from
the companies of Ortingo and of La Nuit, leaning upon their unsightly
weapons and watching the practice of the Englishmen.
“A good shot, Hewett, a good shot!” said old Johnston to a young bowman,
who stood with his bow in his left hand, gazing with parted lips after
his flying shaft. “You see, she finds the ring, as I knew she would from
the moment that your string twanged.”
“Loose it easy, steady, and yet sharp,” said Aylward. “By my hilt! mon
gar., it is very well when you do but shoot at a shield, but when there
is a man behind the shield, and he rides at you with wave of sword and
glint of eyes from behind his vizor, you may find him a less easy mark.”
“It is a mark that I have found before now,” answered the young bowman.
“And shall again, camarade, I doubt not. But hola! Johnston, who is this
who holds his bow like a crow-keeper?”
“It is Silas Peterson, of Horsham. Do not wink with one eye and look
with the other, Silas, and do not hop and dance after you shoot, with
your tongue out, for that will not speed it upon its way. Stand straight
and firm, as God made you. Move not the bow arm, and steady with the
drawing hand!”
“I' faith,” said Black Simon, “I am a spearman myself, and am more
fitted for hand-strokes than for such work as this. Yet I have spent my
days among bowmen, and I have seen many a brave shaft sped. I will not
say but that we have some good marksmen here, and that this Company
would be accounted a fine body of archers at any time or place. Yet I
do not see any men who bend so strong a bow or shoot as true a shaft as
those whom I have known.”
“You say sooth,” said Johnston, turning his seamed and grizzled face
upon the man-at-arms. “See yonder,” he added, pointing to a bombard
which lay within the camp: “there is what hath done scath to good
bowmanship, with its filthy soot and foolish roaring mouth. I wonder
that a true knight, like our prince, should carry such a scurvy thing in
his train. Robin, thou red-headed lurden, how oft must I tell thee not
to shoot straight with a quarter-wind blowing across the mark?”
“By these ten finger-bones! there were some fine bowmen at the intaking
of Calais,” said Aylward. “I well remember that, on occasion of an
outfall, a Genoan raised his arm over his mantlet, and shook it at us, a
hundred paces from our line. There were twenty who loosed shafts at him,
and when the man was afterwards slain it was found that he had taken
eighteen through his forearm.”
“And I can call to mind,” remarked Johnston, “that when the great
cog 'Christopher,' which the French had taken from us, was moored two
hundred paces from the shore, two archers, little Robin Withstaff and
Elias Baddlesmere, in four shots each cut every strand of her hempen
anchor-cord, so that she well-nigh came upon the rocks.”
“Good shooting, i' faith rare shooting!” said Black Simon. “But I have
seen you, Johnston, and you, Samkin Aylward, and one or two others who
are still with us, shoot as well as the best. Was it not you, Johnston,
who took the fat ox at Finsbury butts against the pick of London town?”
A sunburnt and black-eyed Brabanter had stood near the old archers,
leaning upon a large crossbow and listening to their talk, which had
been carried on in that hybrid camp dialect which both nations could
understand. He was a squat, bull-necked man, clad in the iron helmet,
mail tunic, and woollen gambesson of his class. A jacket with hanging
sleeves, slashed with velvet at the neck and wrists, showed that he was
a man of some consideration, an under-officer, or file-leader of his
company.
“I cannot think,” said he, “why you English should be so fond of your
six-foot stick. If it amuse you to bend it, well and good; but why
should I strain and pull, when my little moulinet will do all for me,
and better than I can do it for myself?”
“I have seen good shooting with the prod and with the latch,” said
Aylward, “but, by my hilt! camarade, with all respect to you and to your
bow, I think that is but a woman's weapon, which a woman can point and
loose as easily as a man.”
“I know not about that,” answered the Brabanter, “but this I know,
that though I have served for fourteen years, I have never yet seen an
Englishman do aught with the long-bow which I could not do better with
my arbalest. By the three kings! I would even go further, and say that I
have done things with my arbalest which no Englishman could do with his
long-bow.”
“Well said, mon gar.,” cried Aylward. “A good cock has ever a brave
call. Now, I have shot little of late, but there is Johnston here who
will try a round with you for the honor of the Company.”
“And I will lay a gallon of Jurancon wine upon the long-bow,” said Black
Simon, “though I had rather, for my own drinking, that it were a quart
of Twynham ale.”
“I take both your challenge and your wager,” said the man of Brabant,
throwing off his jacket and glancing keenly about him with his black,
twinkling eyes. “I cannot see any fitting mark, for I care not to waste
a bolt upon these shields, which a drunken boor could not miss at a
village kermesse.”
“This is a perilous man,” whispered an English man-at-arms, plucking at
Aylward's sleeve. “He is the best marksman of all the crossbow companies