Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (70 page)

“I would, Wamba,” said the Knight, “that our host of the trysting-tree, or the jolly Friar, his chaplain, heard this thy ditty in praise of our bluff yeoman.”

“So would not I,” said Wamba, “but for the horn that hangs at your baldric.”

“Ay,” said the Knight, “this is a pledge of Locksley’s goodwill, though I am not like to need it. Three mots on this bugle will, I am assured, bring round, at our need, a jolly band of yonder honest yeomen.”

“I would say, Heaven forefend,” said the Jester, “were it not that that fair gift is a pledge they would let us pass peaceably.”

“Why, what meanest thou?” said the Knight; “thinkest thou that but for this pledge of fellowship they would assault us?”

“Nay, for me I say nothing,” said Wamba; “for green trees have ears as well as stone walls. But canst thou construe me this, Sir Knight? When is thy wine-pitcher and thy purse better empty than full?”

“Why, never, I think,” replied the Knight.

“Thou never deservest to have a full one in thy hand, for so simple an answer! Thou hadst best empty thy pitcher ere thou pass it to a Saxon, and leave thy money at home ere thou walk in the greenwood.”

“You hold our friends for robbers, then?” said the Knight of the Fetterlock.

“You hear me not say so, fair sir,” said Wamba. “It may relieve a man’s steed to take off his mail when he hath a long journey to make; and, certes, it may do good to the rider’s soul to ease him of that which is the root of evil; therefore will I give no hard names to those who do such services. Only I would wish my mail at home, and my purse in my chamber, when I meet with these good fellows, because it might save them some trouble.”

“We are bound to pray for them, my friend, notwithstanding the fair character thou dost afford them.”

“Pray for them with all my heart,” said Wamba; “but in the town, not in the greenwood, like the abbot of St. Bee’s, whom they caused to say mass with an old hollow oak-tree for his stall.”

“Say as thou list, Wamba,” replied the Knight, “these yeomen did thy master Cedric yeomanly service at Torquilstone.”

“Ay, truly,” answered Wamba; “but that was in the fashion of their trade with Heaven.”

“Their trade, Wamba! how mean you by that?” replied his companion.

“Marry thus,” said the Jester. “They make up a balanced account with Heaven, as our old cellarer used to call his ciphering, as fair as Isaac the Jew keeps with his debtors, and, like him, give out a very little, and take large credit for doing so; reckoning, doubtless, on their own behalf the sevenfold ussury which the blessed text hath promised to charitable loans.”

“Give me an example of your meaning, Wamba; I know nothing of ciphers or rates of usage,” answered the Knight.

“Why,” said Wamba, “an your valour be so dull, you will please to learn that those honest fellows balance a good deed with one not quite so laudable, as a crown given to a begging friar with an hundred byzants taken from a fat abbot, or a wench kissed in the greenwood with the relief of a poor widow.”

“Which of these was the good deed, which was the felony?” interrupted the Knight.

“A good gibe! a good gibe!” said Wamba; “keeping witty company sharpeneth the apprehension. You said nothing so well, Sir Knight, I will be sworn, when you held drunken vespers with the bluff hermit. But to go on.—The merry men of the forest set off the building of a cottage with the burning of a castle, the thatching of a choir against the robbing of a church, the setting free a poor prisoner against the murder of a proud sheriff, or, to come nearer to our point, the deliverance of a Saxon franklin against the burning alive of a Norman baron. Gentle thieves they are, in short, and courteous robbers; but it is ever the luckiest to meet with them when they are at the worst.”

“How so, Wamba?” said the Knight.

“Why, then they have some compunction, and are for making up matters with Heaven. But when they have struck an even balance, Heaven help them with whom they next open the account! The travellers who first met them after their good service at Torquilstone would have a woeful flaying. And yet,” said Wamba, coming close up to the Knight’s side, “there be companions who are far more dangerous for travellers to meet than yonder outlaws.”

“And who may they be, for you have neither bears nor wolves, I trow?” said the Knight.

“Marry, sir, but we have Malvoisin’s men-at-arms,” said Wamba; “and let me tell you that, in time of civil war, a halfscore of these is worth a band of wolves at any time. They are now expecting their harvest, and are reinforced with the soldiers that escaped from Torquilstone; so that, should we meet with a band of them, we are like to pay for our feats of arms. Now, I pray you, Sir Knight, what would you do if we met two of them?”

“Pin the villains to the earth with my lance, Wamba, if they offered us any impediment.”

“But what if there were four of them?”

“They should drink of the same cup,” answered the Knight.

“What if six,” continued Wamba, “and we as we now are, barely two; would you not remember Locksley’s horn?”

“What! sound for aid,” exclaimed the Knight, “against a score of such rascaille as these, whom one good knight could drive before him, as the wind drives the withered leaves?”

“Nay, then,” said Wamba, “I will pray you for a close sight of that same horn that hath so powerful a breath.”

The Knight undid the clasp of the baldric, and indulged his fellow-traveller, who immediately hung the bugle round his own neck.

“Tra-lira-la,” said he, whistling the notes; “nay, I know my gamut
^gd
as well as another.”

“How mean you, knave?” said the Knight; “restore me the bugle.”

“Content you, Sir Knight, it is in safe keeping. When valour and folly travel, folly should bear the horn, because she can blow the best.”

“Nay but, rogue,” said the Black Knight, “this exceedeth thy license. Beware ye tamper not with my patience.”

“Urge me not with violence, Sir Knight,” said the Jester, keeping at a distance from the impatient champion, “or folly will show a clean pair of heels, and leave valour to find out his way through the wood as best he may.”

“Nay, thou hast hit me there,” said the Knight; “and, sooth to say, I have little time to jangle with thee. Keep the horn an thou wilt, but let us proceed on our journey.”

“You will not harm me, then?” said Wamba.

“I tell thee no, thou knave!”

“Ay, but pledge me your knightly word for it,” continued Wamba, as he approached with great caution.

“My knightly word I pledge; only come on with thy foolish self.”

“Nay, then, valour and folly are once more boon companions,” said the Jester, coming up frankly to the Knight’s side; “but, in truth, I love not such buffets as that you bestowed on the burly Friar, when his holiness rolled on the green like a king of the nine-pins. And now that folly wears the horn, let valour rouse himself and shake his mane; for, if I mistake not, there are company in yonder brake that are on the look-out for us.”

“What makes thee judge so?” said the Knight.

“Because I have twice or thrice noticed the glance of a morrion
^ge
from amongst the green leaves. Had they been honest men, they had kept the path. But yonder thicket is a choice chapel for the clerks of St. Nicholas.”

“By my faith,” said the Knight, closing his visor, “I think thou be’st in the right on’t.”

And in good time did he close it, for three arrows flew at the same instant from the suspected spot against his head and breast, one of which would have penetrated to the brain, had it not been turned aside by the steel visor. The other two were averted by the gorget, and by the shield which hung around his neck.

“Thanks, trusty armourer,” said the Knight. “Wamba, let us close with them,” and he rode straight to the thicket. He was met by six or seven men-at-arms, who ran against him with their lances at full career. Three of the weapons struck against him, and splintered with as little effect as if they had been driven against a tower of steel. The Black Knight’s eyes seemed to flash fire even through the aperture of his visor. He raised himself in his stirrups with an air of inexpressible dignity, and exclaimed, “What means this, my masters!” The men made no other reply than by drawing their swords and attacking him on every side, crying, “Die, tyrant!”

“Ha! St. Edward! Ha! St. George!” said the Black Knight, striking down a man at every invocation; “have we traitors here?”

His opponents, desperate as they were, bore back from an arm which carried death in every blow, and it seemed as if the terror of his single strength was about to gain the battle against such odds, when a knight, in blue armour, who had hitherto kept himself behind the other assailants, spurred forward with his lance, and taking aim, not at the rider but at the steed, wounded the noble animal mortally.

“That was a felon stroke!” exclaimed the Black Knight, as the steed fell to the earth, bearing his rider along with him.

And at this moment Wamba winded the bugle, for the whole had passed so speedily that he had not time to do so sooner. The sudden sound made the murderers bear back once more, and Wamba, though so imperfectly weaponed, did not hesitate to rush in and assist the Black Knight to rise.

“Shame on ye, false cowards!” exclaimed he in the blue harness, who seemed to lead the assailants, “do ye fly from the empty blast of a horn blown by a jester?”

Animated by his words, they attacked the Black Knight anew, whose best refuge was now to place his back against an oak, and defend himself with his sword. The felon knight, who had taken another spear, watching the moment when his formidable antagonist was most closely pressed, galloped against him in hopes to nail him with his lance against the tree, when his purpose was again intercepted by Wamba. The Jester, making up by agility the want of strength, and little noticed by the men-at-arms, who were busied in their more important object, hovered on the skirts of the fight, and effectually checked the fatal career of the Blue Knight, by hamstringing his horse with a stroke of his sword. Horse and man went to the ground; yet the situation of the Knight of the Fetterlock continued very precarious, as he was pressed close by several men completely armed, and began to be fatigued by the violent exertions necessary to defend himself on so many points at nearly the same moment, when a grey-goose shaft suddenly stretched on the earth one of the most formidable of his assailants, and a band of yeomen broke forth from the glade, headed by Locksley and the jovial Friar, who, taking ready and effectual part in the fray, soon disposed of the ruffians, all of whom lay on the spot dead or mortally wounded. The Black Knight thanked his deliverers with a dignity they had not observed in his former bearing, which hitherto had seemed rather that of a blunt, bold soldier than of a person of exalted rank.

“It concerns me much,” he said, “even before I express my full gratitude to my ready friends, to discover, if I may, who have been my unprovoked enemies. Open the visor of that Blue Knight, Wamba, who seems the chief of these villains.”

The Jester instantly made up to the leader of the assassins, who, bruised by his fall, and entangled under the wounded steed, lay incapable either of flight or resistance.

“Come, valiant sir,” said Wamba, “I must be your armourer as well as your equerry. I have dismounted you, and now I will un-helm you.”

So saying, with no very gentle hand he undid the helmet of the Blue Knight, which, rolling to a distance on the grass, displayed to the Knight of the Fetterlock grizzled locks, and a countenance he did not expect to have seen under such circumstances.

“Waldemar Fitzurse!” he said in astonishment; “what could urge one of thy rank and seeming worth to so foul an undertaking?”

“Richard,” said the captive knight, looking up to him, “thou knowest little of mankind, if thou knowest not to what ambition and revenge can lead every child of Adam.”

“Revenge!” answered the Black Knight; “I never wronged thee. On me thou hast nought to revenge.”

“My daughter, Richard, whose alliance thou didst scorn—was that no injury to a Norman, whose blood is noble as thine own?”

“Thy daughter!” replied the Black Knight. “A proper cause of enmity, and followed up to a bloody issue! Stand back, my masters, I would speak to him alone. And now, Waldemar Fitzurse, say me the truth: confess who set thee on this traitorous deed.”

“Thy father’s son,” answered Waldemar, “who, in so doing, did but avenge on thee thy disobedience to thy father.”

Richard’s eyes sparkled with indignation, but his better nature overcame it. He pressed his hand against his brow, and remained an instant gazing on the face of the humbled baron, in whose features pride was contending with shame.

“Thou dost not ask thy life, Waldemar?” said the King.

“He that is in the lion’s clutch,” answered Fitzurse, “knows it were needless.”

“Take it, then, unasked,” said Richard; “the lion preys not on prostrate carcasses. Take thy life, but with this condition, that in three days thou shalt leave England, and go to hide thine infamy in thy Norman castle, and that thou wilt never mention the name of John of Anjou as connected with thy felony. If thou art found on English ground after the space I have allotted thee, thou diest; or if thou breathest aught that can attaint the honour of my house, by St. George! not the altar itself shall be a sanctuary. I will hang thee out to feed the ravens from the very pinnacle of thine own castle. Let this knight have a steed, Locksley, for I see your yeomen have caught those which were running loose, and let him depart unharmed.”

“But that I judge I listen to a voice whose behests must not be disputed,” answered the yeoman, “I would send a shaft after the skulking villain that should spare him the labour of a long journey.”

“Thou bearest an English heart, Locksley,” said the Black Knight, “and well dost judge thou art the more bound to obey my behest: I am Richard of England!”