Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (43 page)

When the Templar reached the hall of the castle, he found De Bracy already there. “Your love-suit,” said De Bracy, “hath, I suppose, been disturbed, like mine, by this obstreperous summons. But you have come later and more reluctantly, and therefore I presume your interview has proved more agreeable than mine.”

“Has your suit, then, been unsuccessfully paid to the Saxon heiress?” said the Templar.

“By the bones of Thomas a Becket,” answered De Bracy, “the Lady Rowena must have heard that I cannot endure the sight of women’s tears.”

“Away!” said the Templar; “thou a leader of a Free Company, and regard a woman’s tears! A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love make the flame blaze the brighter.”

“Gramercy for the few drops of thy sprinkling,” replied De Bracy; “but this damsel hath wept enough to extinguish a beaconlight. Never was such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes, since the days of St. Niobe, of whom Prior Aymer told us.
^cu
A water-fiend hath possessed the fair Saxon.”

“A legion of fiends have occupied the bosom of the Jewess,” replied the Templar; “for I think no single one, not even Apollyon
^cv
himself, could have inspired such indomitable pride and resolution. But where is Front-de-Bœuf? That horn is sounded more and more clamorously.”

“He is negotiating with the Jew, I suppose,” replied De Bracy, coolly; “probably the howls of Isaac have drowned the blast of the bugle. Thou mayst know, by experience, Sir Brian, that a Jew parting with his treasures on such terms as our friend Front-de-Bœuf is like to offer will raise a clamour loud enough to be heard over twenty horns and trumpets to boot. But we will make the vassals call him.”

They were soon after joined by Front-de-Bœuf, who had been disturbed in his tyrannic cruelty in the manner with which the reader is acquainted, and had only tarried to give some necessary directions.

“Let us see the cause of this cursed clamour,” said Front-de-Bœuf; “here is a letter, and, if I mistake not, it is in Saxon.”

He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had had really some hopes of coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then handed it to De Bracy.

“It may be magic spells for aught I know,” said De Bracy, who possessed his full proportion of the ignorance which characterised the chivalry of the period. “Our chaplain attempted to teach me to write,” he said, ”but all my letters were formed like spear-heads and sword-blades, and so the old shaveling gave up the task.”

“Give it me,” said the Templar. “We have that of the priestly character, that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valour.”

“Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then,” said De Bracy; “what says the scroll?”

“It is a formal letter of defiance,” answered the Templar; “but, by our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most extraordinary cartel that ever was sent across the drawbridge of a baronial castle.”

“Jest!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “I would gladly know who dares jest with me in such a matter! Read it, Sir Brian.”

The Templar accordingly read it as follows:

“I, Wamba, the son of Witless, jester to a noble and freeborn man, Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon: and I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, the swineherd—”

“Thou are mad,” said Front-de-Bœuf, interrupting the reader.

“By St. Luke, it is so set down,” answered the Templar. Then resuming his task, he went on—“I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, swineherd unto the said Cedric, with the assistance of our allies and confederates, who make common cause with us in this our feud, namely, the good knight, called for the present Le
Noir Faineant,
and the stout yeoman, Robert Locksley, called Cleave-the-Wand, do you, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf, and your allies and accomplices whomsoever, to wit, that whereas you have, without cause given or feud declared, wrongfully and by mastery seized upon the person of our lord and master the said Cedric; also upon the person of a noble and freeborn damsel, the Lady Rowena of Hargottstandstede; also upon the person of a noble and freeborn man, Athelstane of Coningsburgh; also upon the persons of certain freeborn men, their
cnichts;
also upon certain serfs, their born bondsmen; also upon a certain Jew, named Isaac of York, together with his daughter, a Jewess, and certain horses and mules: which noble persons, with their
cnichts,
and slaves, and also with the horses and mules, Jew and Jewess beforesaid, were all in peace with his Majesty, and travelling as liege subjects upon the king’s highway; therefore we require and demand that the said noble persons, namely, Cedric of Rotherwood, Rowena of Hargottstandstede, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, with their servants,
cnichts,
and followers, also the horses and mules, Jew and Jewess aforesaid, together with all goods and chattels to them pertaining, be, within an hour after the delivery hereof, delivered to us, or to those whom we shall appoint to receive the same, and that untouched and unharmed in body and goods. Failing of which, we do pronounce to you, that we hold ye as robbers and traitors, and will wager our bodies against ye in battle, siege, or otherwise, and do our utmost to your annoyance and destruction. Wherefore may God have you in His keeping. Signed by us upon the eve of St. Withold’s day, under the great trysting oak in the Harthill Walk, the above being written by a holy man, clerk to God, our Lady, and St. Dunstan, in the chapel of Copmanhurst.”

At the bottom of this document was scrawled, in the first place, a rude sketch of a cock’s head and comb, with a legend expressing this hieroglyphic to be the sign-manual
^cw
of Wamba, son of Witless. Under this respectable emblem stood a cross, stated to be the mark of Gurth, the son of Beowulph. Then was written, in rough bold characters, the words Le
Noir Faineant.
And, to conclude the whole, an arrow, neatly enough drawn, was described as the mark of the yeoman Locksley.

The knights heard this uncommon document read from end to end, and then gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Bœuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed jocularity.

“I give you plain warning,” he said, “fair sirs, that you had better consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances, than give way to such misplaced merriment.”

“Front-de-Bœuf has not recovered his temper since his late overthrow,” said De Bracy to the Templar; “he is cowed at the very idea of a cartel, though it come but from a fool and a swineherd.”

“By St. Michael,” answered Front-de-Bœuf, “I would thou couldst stand the whole brunt of this adventure thyself, De Bracy. These fellows dared not have acted with such inconceivable impudence, had they not been supported by some strong bands. There are enough of outlaws in this forest to resent my protecting the deer. I did but tie one fellow, who was taken red-handed and in the fact, to the horns of a wild stag, which gored him to death in five minutes, and I had as many arrows shot at me as there were launched against yonder target at Ashby. Here, fellow,” he added, to one of his attendants, ”hast thou sent out to see by what force this precious challenge is to be supported?”

“There are at least two hundred men assembled in the woods,” answered a squire who was in attendance.

“Here is a proper matter!” said Front-de-Bœuf; “this comes of lending you the use of my castle, that cannot manage your undertaking quietly, but you must bring this nest of hornets about my ears!”

“Of hornets!” said De Bracy, “of stingless drones rather; a band of lazy knaves, who take to the wood and destroy the venison rather than labour for their maintenance.”

“Stingless!” replied Front-de-Bœuf; “fork-headed shafts of a cloth-yard in length,
^cx
and these shot within the breadth of a French crown, are sting enough.”

“For shame, Sir Knight!” said the Templar. “Let us summon our people and sally forth upon them. One knight—ay, one man-at-arms, were enough for twenty such peasants.”

“Enough, and too much,” said De Bracy; “I should only be ashamed to couch lance against them.”

“True,” answered Front-de-Bœuf; “were they black Turks or Moors, Sir Templar, or the craven peasants of France, most valiant De Bracy; but these are English yeomen, over whom we shall have no advantage, save what we may derive from our arms and horses, which will avail us little in the glades of the forest. Sally, saidst thou? We have scarce men enough to defend the castle. The best of mine are at York; so is all your band, De Bracy; and we have scarcely twenty, besides the handful that were engaged in this mad business.”

“Thou dost not fear,” said the Templar, “that they can assemble in force sufficient to attempt the castle?”

“Not so, Sir Brian,” answered Front-de-Bœuf. “These outlaws have indeed a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced leaders, my castle may defy them.”

“Send to thy neighbours,” said the Templar; “let them assemble their people and come to the rescue of three knights, besiegedby a jester and a swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-Bœuf!”

“You jest, Sir Knight,” answered the baron; “but to whom should I send? Malvoisin is by this time at York with his retainers, and so are my other allies; and so should I have been, but for this infernal enterprise.”

“Then send to York and recall our people,” said De Bracy. “If they abide the shaking of my standard, or the sight of my Free Companions, I will give them credit for the boldest outlaws ever bent bow in greenwood.”

“And who shall bear such a message?” said Front-de-Bœuf; “they will beset every path, and rip the errand out of his bosom. I have it,” he added, after pausing for a moment. “Sir Templar, thou canst write as well as read, and if we can but find the writing materials of my chaplain, who died a twelvemonth since in the midst of his Christmas carousals—”

“So please ye,” said the squire, who was still in attendance, “I think old Urfried has them somewhere in keeping, for love of the confessor. He was the last man, I have heard her tell, who ever said aught to her which man ought in courtesy to address to maid or matron.”

“Go, search them out, Engelred,” said Front-de-Bœuf; “and then, Sir Templar, thou shalt return an answer to this bold challenge.”

“I would rather do it at the sword’s point than at that of the pen,” said Bois-Guilbert; “but be it as you will.”

He sat down accordingly, and indited, in the French language, an epistle of the following tenor:

“Sir Reginald Front-de-Bœuf, with his noble and knightly allies and confederates, receive no defiances at the hands of slaves, bondsmen, or fugitives. If the person calling himself the Black Knight have indeed a claim to the honours of chivalry, he ought to know that he stands degraded by his present association, and has no right to ask reckoning at the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching the prisoners we have made, we do in Christian charity require you to send a man of religion to receive their confession and reconcile them with God; since it is our fixed intention to execute them this morning before noon, so that their heads, being placed on the battlements, shall show to all men how lightly we esteem those who have bestirred themselves in their rescue. Wherefore, as above, we require you to send a priest to reconcile them to God, in doing which you shall render them the last earthly service.”

This letter, being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had brought.

The yeoman, having thus accomplished his mission, returned to the headquarters of the allies, which were for the present established under a venerable oak-tree, about three arrowflights distant from the castle. Here Wamba and Gurth, with their allies the Black Knight and Locksley, and the jovial hermit, awaited with impatience an answer to their summons. Around, and at a distance from them, were seen many a bold yeoman, whose silvan dress and weather-beaten countenances showed the ordinary nature of their occupation. More than two hundred had already assembled, and others were fast coming in. Those whom they obeyed as leaders were only distinguished from the others by a feather in the cap, their dress, arms, and equipments being in all other respects the same.

Besides these bands, a less orderly and a worse-armed force, consisting of the Saxon inhabitants of the neighbouring township, as well as many bondsmen and servants from Cedric’s extensive estate, had already arrived, for the purpose of assisting in his rescue. Few of these were armed otherwise than with such rustic weapons as necessity sometimes converts to military purposes. Boar-spears, scythes, flails, and the like, were their chief arms; for the Normans, with the usual policy of conquerors, were jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the possession or the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered the assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the besieged as the strength of the men themselves, their superior numbers, and the animation inspired by a just cause, might otherwise well have made them. It was to the leaders of this motley army that the letter of the Templar was now delivered.

Reference was at first made to the chaplain for an exposition of its contents.

“By the crook of St. Dunstan,” said that worthy ecclesiastic, “which hath brought more sheep within the sheepfold than the crook of e’er another saint in Paradise, I swear that I cannot expound unto you this jargon, which, whether it be French or Arabic, is beyond my guess.”

He then gave the letter to Gurth, who shook his head gruffly, and passed it to Wamba. The Jester looked at each of the four corners of the paper with such a grin of affected intelligence as a monkey is apt to assume upon similar occasions, then cut a caper, and gave the letter to Locksley.