Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (16 page)

As the Palmer, lighted by a domestic with a torch, past through the intricate combination of apartments of this large and irregular mansion, the cupbearer, coming behind him, whispered in his ear, that if he had no objection to a cup of good mead in his apartment, there were many domestics in that family who would gladly hear the news he had brought from the Holy Land, and particularly that which concerned the Knight of Ivanhoe. Wamba presently appeared to urge the same request, observing that a cup after midnight was worth three after curfew. Without disputing a maxim urged by such grave authority, the Palmer thanked them for their courtesy, but observed that he had included in his religious vow an obligation never to speak in the kitchen on matters which were prohibited in the hall.

“That vow,” said Wamba to the cupbearer, “would scarce suit a serving-man.”

The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. “I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber,”
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said he; “but since he is so unsocial to Christians, e’en let him take the next stall to Isaac the Jew’s. Anwold,” said he to the torch-bearer, “carry the Pilgrim to the southern cell. I give you good-night,” he added, “Sir Palmer, with small thanks for short courtesy.”

“Good-night, and Our Lady’s benison!” said the Palmer, with composure; and his guide moved forward.

In a small ante-chamber, into which several doors opened, and which was lighted by a small iron lamp, they met a second interruption from the waiting-maid of Rowena, who, saying in a tone of authority that her mistress desired to speak with the Palmer, took the torch from the hand of Anwold, and, bidding him await her return, made a sign to the Palmer to follow. Apparently he did not think it proper to decline this invitation as he had done the former; for, though his gesture indicated some surprise at the summons, he obeyed it without answer or remonstrance.

A short passage, and an ascent of seven steps, each of which was composed of a solid beam of oak, led him to the apartment of the Lady Rowena, the rude magnificence of which corresponded to the respect which was paid to her by the lord of the mansion. The walls were covered with embroidered hangings, on which different-coloured silks, interwoven with gold and silver threads, had been employed, with all the art of which the age was capable, to represent the sports of hunting and hawking. The bed was adorned with the same rich tapestry, and surrounded with curtains dyed with purple. The seats had also their stained coverings, and one, which was higher than the rest, was accommodated with a footstool of ivory, curiously carved.

No fewer than four silver candelabras, holding great waxen torches, served to illuminate this apartment. Yet let not modem beauty envy the magnificence of a Saxon princess. The walls of the apartment were so ill finished and so full of crevices, that the rich hangings shook to the night blast, and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain. Magnificence there was, with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort there was little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.

The Lady Rowena, with three of her attendants standing at her back, and arranging her hair ere she lay down to rest, was seated in the sort of throne already mentioned, and looked as if born to exact general homage. The Pilgrim acknowledged her claim to it by a low genuflection.

“Rise, Palmer,” said she graciously. “The defender of the absent has a right to favourable reception from all who value truth and honour manhood.” She then said to her train, “Retire, excepting only Elgitha; I would speak with this holy Pilgrim.”

The maidens, without leaving the apartment, retired to its further extremity, and sat down on a small bench against the wall, where they remained mute as statues, though at such a distance that their whispers could not have interrupted the conversation of their mistress.

“Pilgrim,” said the lady, after a moment’s pause, during which she seemed uncertain how to address him, “you this night mentioned a name—I mean,” she said with a degree of effort, “the name of Ivanhoe—in the halls where by nature and kindred it should have sounded most acceptably; and yet such is the perverse course of fate, that of many whose hearts must have throbbed at the sound, I only dare ask you where, and in what condition, you left him of whom you spoke? We heard that, having remained in Palestine, on account of his impaired health, after the departure of the English army, he had experienced the persecution of the French faction, to whom the Templars are known to be attached.”

“I know little of the Knight of Ivanhoe,” answered the Palmer, with a troubled voice. “I would I knew him better, since you, lady, are interested in his fate. He hath, I believe, surmounted the persecution of his enemies in Palestine, and is on the eve of returning to England, where you, lady, must know better than I what is his chance of happiness.”

The Lady Rowena sighed deeply, and asked more particularly when the Knight of Ivanhoe might be expected in his native country, and whether he would not be exposed to great dangers by the road. On the first point, the Palmer professed ignorance; on the second, he said that the voyage might be safely made by the way of Venice and Genoa, and from thence through France to England. “Ivanhoe,” he said, “was so well acquainted with the language and manners of the French, that there was no fear of his incurring any hazard during that part of his travels.”

“Would to God,” said the Lady Rowena, “he were here safely arrived, and able to bear arms in the approaching tourney, in which the chivalry of this land are expected to display their address and valour. Should Athelstane of Coningsburgh obtain the prize, Ivanhoe is like to hear evil tidings when he reaches England. How looked he, stranger, when you last saw him? Had disease laid her hand heavy upon his strength and comeliness?”

“He was darker,” said the Palmer, “and thinner than when he came from Cyprus in the train of Cœur-de-Lion, and care seemed to sit heavy on his brow; but I approached not his presence, because he is unknown to me.”

“He will,” said the lady, “I fear, find little in his native land to clear those clouds from his countenance. Thanks, good Pilgrim, for your information concerning the companion of my childhood. Maidens,” she said, “draw near: offer the sleeping-cup to this holy man, whom I will no longer detain from repose.”

One of the maidens presented a silver cup containing a rich mixture of wine and spice, which Rowena barely put to her lips. It was then offered to the Palmer, who, after a low obeisance, tasted a few drops.

“Accept this alms, friend,” continued the lady, offering a piece of gold, “in acknowledgment of thy painful travail, and of the shrines thou has visited.”

The Palmer received the boon with another low reverence, and followed Elgitha out of the apartment.

In the ante-room he found his attendant Anwold, who, taking the torch from the hand of the waiting-maid, conducted him with more haste than ceremony to an exterior and ignoble part of the building, where a number of small apartments, or rather cells, served for sleeping-places to the lower order of domestics, and to strangers of mean degree.

“In which of these sleeps the Jew?” said the Pilgrim.

“The unbelieving dog,” answered Anwold, “kennels in the cell next your holiness. St. Dunstan, how it must be scraped and cleansed ere it be again fit for a Christian!”

“And where sleeps Gurth, the swineherd?” said the stranger.

“Gurth,” replied the bondsman, “sleeps in the cell on your right, as the Jew in that to your left; you serve to keep the child of circumcision separate from the abomination of his tribe. You might have occupied a more honourable place had you accepted of Oswald’s invitation.”

“It is as well as it is,” said the Palmer; “the company, even of a Jew, can hardly spread contamination through an oaken partition.”

So saying, he entered the cabin allotted to him, and taking the torch from the domestic’s hand, thanked him and wished him good-night. Having shut the door of his cell, he placed the torch in a candlestick made of wood, and looked around his sleeping apartment, the furniture of which was of the most simple kind. It consisted of a rude wooden stool, and still ruder hutch or bed-frame, stuffed with clean straw, and accommodated with two or three sheepskins by way of bedclothes.

The Palmer, having extinguished his torch, threw himself, without taking off any part of his clothes, on this rude couch, and slept, or at least retained his recumbent posture, till the earliest sunbeams found their way through the little grated window, which served at once to admit both air and light to his uncomfortable cell. He then started up, and after repeating his matins and adjusting his dress he left it, and entered that of Isaac the Jew, lifting the latch as gently as he could.

The inmate was lying in troubled slumber upon a couch similar to that on which the Palmer himself had passed the night. Such parts of his dress as the Jew had laid aside on the preceding evening were disposed carefully around his person, as if to prevent the hazard of their being carried off during his slumbers. There was a trouble on his brow amounting almost to agony. His hands and arms moved convulsively, as if struggling with the nightmare; and besides several ejaculations in Hebrew, the following were distinctly heard in the Norman-English, or mixed language of the country: “For the sake of the God of Abraham, spare an unhappy old man! I am poor, I am penniless; should your irons wrench my limbs asunder, I could not gratify you!”

The Palmer awaited not the end of the Jew’s vision, but stirred him with his pilgrim’s staff. The touch probably associated, as is usual, with some of the apprehensions excited by his dream; for the old man started up, his grey hair standing almost erect upon his head, and huddling some part of his garments about him, while he held the detached pieces with the tenacious grasp of a falcon, he fixed upon the Palmer his keen black eyes, expressive of wild surprise and of bodily apprehension.

“Fear nothing from me, Isaac,” said the Palmer, “I come as your friend.”

“The God of Israel requite you,” said the Jew, greatly relieved; “I dreamed—but Father Abraham be praised, it was but a dream!” Then, collecting himself, he added in his usual tone, “And what may it be your pleasure to want at so early an hour with the poor Jew?”

“It is to tell you,” said the Palmer, “that if you leave not this mansion instantly, and travel not with some haste, your journey may prove a dangerous one.”

“Holy father!” said the Jew, “whom could it interest to endanger so poor a wretch as I am?”

“The purpose you can best guess,” said the Pilgrim; “but rely on this, that when the Templar crossed the hall yesternight, he spoke to his Mussulman slaves in the Saracen language, which I well understand, and charged them this morning to watch the journey of the Jew, to seize upon him when at a convenient distance from the mansion, and to conduct him to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin or to that of Reginald Front-de-Bœuf.”

It is impossible to describe the extremity of terror which seized upon the Jew at this information, and seemed at once to overpower his whole faculties. His arms fell down to his sides, and his head drooped on his breast, his knees bent under his weight, every nerve and muscle of his frame seemed to collapse and lose its energy, and he sunk at the foot of the Palmer, not in the fashion of one who intentionally stoops, kneels, or prostrates himself to excite compassion, but like a man borne down on all sides by the pressure of some invisible force, which crushes him to the earth without the power of resistance.

“Holy God of Abraham!” was his first exclamation, folding and elevating his wrinkled hands, but without raising his grey head from the pavement; “Oh, holy Moses! O, blessed Aaron! the dream is not dreamed for nought, and the vision cometh not in vain! I feel their irons already tear my sinews! I feel the rack pass over my body like the saws, and harrows, and axes of iron over the men of Rabbah, and of the cities of the children of Ammon!”

“Stand up, Isaac, and hearken to me,” said the Palmer, who viewed the extremity of his distress with a compassion in which contempt was largely mingled; “you have cause for your terror, considering how your brethren have been used, in order to extort from them their hoards, both by princes and nobles; but stand up, I say, and I will point out to you the means of escape. Leave this mansion instantly, while its inmates sleep sound after the last night’s revel. I will guide you by the secret paths of the forest, known as well to me as to any forester that ranges it, and I will not leave you till you are under safe conduct of some chief or baron going to the tournament, whose good-will you have probably the means of securing.”

As the ears of Isaac received the hopes of escape which this speech intimated, he began gradually, and inch by inch, as it were, to raise himself up from the ground, until he fairly rested upon his knees, throwing back his long grey hair and beard, and fixing his keen black eyes upon the Palmer’s face, with a look expressive at once of hope and fear, not unmingled with suspicion. But when he heard the concluding part of the sentence, his original terror appeared to revive in full force, and he dropt once more on his face, exclaiming, “
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possess the means of securing good-will! Alas! there is but one road to the favour of a Christian, and how can the poor Jew find it, whom extortions have already reduced to the misery of Lazarus?”
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Then, as if suspicion had overpowered his other feelings, he suddenly exclaimed, “For the love of God, young man, betray me not; for the sake of the Great Father who made us all, Jew as well as Gentile, Israelite and Ishmaelite, do me no treason! I have not means to secure the good-will of a Christian beggar, were he rating it at a single penny.” As he spoke these last words, he raised himself and grasped the Palmer’s mantle with a look of the most earnest entreaty. The Pilgrim extricated himself, as if there were contamination in the touch.