Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (75 page)

Our scene now returns to the exterior of the castle, or preceptory, of Templestowe, about the hour when the bloody die was to be cast for the life or death of Rebecca. It was a scene of bustle and life, as if the whole vicinity had poured forth its inhabitants to a village wake or rural feast. But the earnest desire to look on blood and death is not peculiar to those dark ages; though, in the gladiatorial exercise of single combat and general tourney, they were habituated to the bloody spectacle of brave men falling by each other’s hands. Even in our own days, when morals are better understood, an execution, a bruising-match, a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers, collects, at considerable hazard to themselves, immense crowds of spectators, otherwise little interested, except to see how matters are to be conducted, or whether the heroes of the day are, in the heroic language of insurgent tailors, “flints” or “dunghills.”
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The eyes, therefore, of a very considerable multitude were bent on the gate of the preceptory of Templestowe, with the purpose of witnessing the procession; while still greater numbers had already surrounded the tiltyard belonging to that establishment. This inclosure was formed on a piece of level ground adjoining to the preceptory, which had been levelled with care, for the exercise of military and chivalrous sports. It occupied the brow of a soft and gentle eminence, was carefully palisaded around, and, as the Templars willingly invited spectators to be witnesses of their skill in feats of chivalry, was amply supplied with galleries and benches for their use.

On the present occasion, a throne was erected for the Grand Master at the east end, surrounded with seats of distinction for the preceptors and knights of the order. Over these floated the sacred standard, called
Le Beau-seant,
which was the ensign, as its name was the battle-cry, of the Templars.

At the opposite end of the lists was a pile of faggots, so arranged around a stake, deeply fixed in the ground, as to leave a space for the victim whom they were destined to consume to enter within the fatal circle, in order to be chained to the stake by the fetters which hung ready for that purpose. Beside this deadly apparatus stood four black slaves, whose colour and African features, then so little known in England, appalled the multitude, who gazed on them as on demons employed about their own diabolical exercises. These men stirred not, excepting now and then, under the direction of one who seemed their chief, to shift and replace the ready fuel. They looked not on the multitude. In fact, they seemed insensible of their presence, and of everything save the discharge of their own horrible duty. And when, in speech with each other, they expanded their blubber lips, and showed their white fangs, as if they grinned at the thoughts of the expected tragedy, the startled commons could scarcely help believing that they were actually the familiar spirits with whom the witch had communed, and who, her time being out, stood ready to assist in her dreadful punishment. They whispered to each other, and communicated all the feats which Satan had performed during that busy and unhappy period, not failing, of course, to give the devil rather more than his due.

“Have you not heard, father Dennet,” quoth one boor to another advanced in years, “that the devil has carried away bodily the great Saxon thane, Athelstane of Coningsburgh?”

“Ay, but he brought him back though, by the blessing of God and St. Dunstan.”

“How’s that?” said a brisk young fellow, dressed in a green cassock embroidered with gold, and having at his heels a stout lad bearing a harp upon his back, which betrayed his vocation. The Minstrel seemed of no vulgar rank; for, besides the splendour of his gaily broidered doublet, he wore around his neck a silver chain, by which hung the “wrest,” or key, with which he tuned his harp. On his right arm was a silver plate, which, instead of bearing, as usual, the cognizance or badge of the baron to whose family he belonged, had barely the word SHERWOOD engraved upon it. “How mean you by that?” said the gay Minstrel, mingling in the conversation of the peasants; “I came to seek one subject for my rhyme, and, by’r Lady, I were glad to find two.”

“It is well avouched,” said the elder peasant, “that after Athelstane of Coningsburgh had been dead four weeks—”

“That is impossible,” said the Minstrel; “I saw him in life at the passage of arms at Ashby-de-la-Zouche.”

“Dead, however, he was, or else translated,” said the younger peasant; “for I heard the monks of St. Edmund’s singing the death’s hymn for him; and, moreover, there was a rich death-meal and dole at the Castle of Coningsburgh, as right was; and thither had I gone, but for Mabel Parkins, who—”

“Ay, dead was Athelstane,” said the old man, shaking his head, “and the more pity it was, for the old Saxon blood—”

“But, your story, my masters—your story,” said the Minstrel, somewhat impatiently.

“Ay, ay—construe us the story,” said a burly friar, who stood beside them, leaning on a pole that exhibited an appearance between a pilgrim’s staff and a quarter-staff, and probably acted as either when occasion served—“your story,” said the stalwart churchman. “Burn not daylight about it; we have short time to spare.”

“An please your reverence,” said Dennet, “a drunken priest came to visit the sacristan at St. Edmund’s—”

“It does not please my reverence,” answered the churchman, “that there should be such an animal as a drunken priest, or, if there were, that a layman should so speak him. Be mannerly, my friend, and conclude the holy man only wrapt in meditation, which makes the head dizzy and foot unsteady, as if the stomach were filled with new wine: I have felt it myself.”

“Well, then,” answered father Dennet, “a holy brother came to visit the sacristan at St. Edmund‘s—a sort of hedge-priest is the visitor, and kills half the deer that are stolen in the forest, who loves the tinkling of a pint-pot better than the sacring-bell,
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and deems a flitch of bacon worth ten of his breviary; for the rest, a good fellow and a merry, who will flourish a quarter-staff, draw a bow, and dance a Cheshire round with e’er a man in Yorkshire.”

“That last part of thy speech, Dennet,” said the Minstrel, “has saved thee a rib or twain.”

“Tush, man, I fear him not,” said Dennet; “I am somewhat old and stiff, but when I fought for the bell and ram at Doncaster—”

“But the story—the story, my friend,” again said the Minstrel.

“Why, the tale is but this—Athelstane of Coningsburgh was buried at St. Edmund’s.”

“That’s a lie, and a loud one,” said the friar, “for I saw him borne to his own Castle of Coningsburgh.”

“Nay, then, e‘en tell the story yourself, my masters,” said Dennet, turning sulky at these repeated contradictions; and it was with some difficulty that the boor could be prevailed on, by the request of his comrade and the Minstrel, to renew his tale. “These two
sober
friars,” said he at length, “since this reverend man will needs have them such, had continued drinking good ale, and wine, and what not, for the best part of a summer’s day, when they were aroused by a deep groan, and a clanking of chains, and the figure of the deceased Athelstane entered the apartment, saying, ‘Ye evil shepherds—!’”

“It is false,” said the friar, hastily, “he never spoke a word.”

“So ho! Friar Tuck,” said the Minstrel, drawing him apart from the rustics; “we have started a new hare, I find.”

“I tell thee, Allan-a-Dale,” said the hermit, “I saw Athelstane of Coningsburgh as much as bodily eyes ever saw a living man. He had his shroud on, and all about him smelt of the sepulchre. A butt of sack will not wash it out of my memory.”

“Pshaw!” answered the Minstrel; “thou dost but jest with me!”

“Never believe me,” said the friar, “an I fetched not a knock at him with my quarter-staff that would have felled an ox, and it glided through his body as it might through a pillar of smoke!”

“By St. Hubert,” said the Minstrel, “but it is a wondrous tale, and fit to be put in metre to the ancient tune, ‘Sorrow came to the Old Friar.”’

“Laugh, if ye list,” said Friar Tuck; “but an ye catch me singing on such a theme, may the next ghost or devil carry me off with him headlong! No, no—I instantly formed the purpose of assisting at some good work, such as the burning of a witch, a judicial combat, or the like matter of godly service, and therefore am I here.”

As they thus conversed, the heavy bell of the church of St. Michael of Templestowe, a venerable building, situated in a hamlet at some distance from the preceptory, broke short their argument. One by one the sullen sounds fell successively on the ear, leaving but sufficient space for each to die away in distant echo, ere the air was again filled by repetition of the iron knell. These sounds, the signal of the approaching ceremony, chilled with awe the hearts of the assembled multitude, whose eyes were now turned to the preceptory, expecting the approach of the Grand Master, the champion, and the criminal.

At length the drawbridge fell, the gates opened, and a knight, bearing the great standard of the order, sallied from the castle, preceded by six trumpets, and followed by the knights preceptors, two and two, the Grand Master coming last, mounted on a stately horse, whose furniture was of the simplest kind. Behind him came Brian de Bois-Guilbert, armed cap-à-pie in bright armour, but without his lance, shield, and sword, which were borne by his two esquires behind him. His face, though partly hidden by a long plume which floated down from his barret-cap,
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bore a strong and mingled expression of passion, in which pride seemed to contendwith irresolution. He looked ghastly pale, as if he had not slept for several nights, yet reined his pawing war-horse with the habitual ease and grace proper to the best lance of the order of the Temple. His general appearance was grand and commanding; but, looking at him with attention, men read that in his dark features from which they willingly withdrew their eyes.

On either side rode Conrade of Mont-Fitchet and Albert de Malvoisin, who acted as godfathers to the champion. They were in their robes of peace, the white dress of the order. Behind them followed other companions of the Temple, with a long train of esquires and pages clad in black, aspirants to the honour of being one day knights of the order. After these neophytes came a guard of warders on foot, in the same sable livery, amidst whose partizans might been seen the pale form of the accused, moving with a slow but undismayed step towards the scene of her fate. She was stript of all her ornaments, lest perchance there should be among them some of those amulets which Satan was supposed to bestow upon his victims, to deprive them of the power of confession even when under the torture. A coarse white dress, of the simplest form, had been substituted for her Oriental garments; yet there was such an exquisite mixture of courage and resignation in her look that even in this garb, and with no other ornament than her long black tresses, each eye wept that looked upon her, and the most hardened bigot regretted the fate that had converted a creature so goodly into a vessel of wrath, and a waged slave of the devil.

A crowd of inferior personages belonging to the preceptory followed the victim, all moving with the utmost order, with arms folded and looks bent upon the ground.

This slow procession moved up the gentle eminence, on the summit of which was the tiltyard, and, entering the lists, marched once around them from right to left, and when they had completed the circle, made a halt. There was then a momentary bustle, while the Grand Master and all his attendants, excepting the champion and his godfathers, dismounted from their horses, which were immediately removed out of the lists by the esquires, who were in attendance for that purpose.

The unfortunate Rebecca was conducted to the black chair placed near the pile. On her first glance at the terrible spot where preparations were making for a death alike dismaying to the mind and painful to the body, she was observed to shudder and shut her eyes, praying internally, doubtless, for her lips moved, though no speech was heard. In the space of a minute she opened her eyes, looked fixedly on the pile as if to familiarise her mind with the object, and then slowly and naturally turned away her head.

Meanwhile, the Grand Master had assumed his seat, and when the chivalry of his order was placed around and behind him, each in his due rank, a loud and long flourish of the trumpets announced that the court were seated for judgment. Malvoisin then, acting as godfather of the champion, stepped forward, and laid the glove of the Jewess, which was the pledge of battle, at the feet of the Grand Master.

“Valorous lord and reverend father,” said he, “here standeth the good knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, Knight Preceptor of the Order of the Temple, who, by accepting the pledge of battle which I now lay at your reverence’s feet, hath become bound to do his devoir in combat this day, to maintain that this Jewish maiden, by name Rebecca, hath justly deserved the doom passed upon her in a chapter of this most holy order of the Temple of Zion, condemning her to die as a sorceress—here, I say, he standeth, such battle to do, knightly and honourable, if such be your noble and sanctified pleasure.”

“Hath he made oath,” said the Grand Master, “that his quarrel is just and honourable? Bring forward the crucifix and the
Te igitur.”
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“Sir and most reverend father,” answered Malvoisin, readily, “our brother here present hath already sworn to the truth of his accusation in the hand of the good knight Conrade de Mont-Fitchet ; and otherwise he ought not to be sworn, seeing that his adversary is an unbeliever, and may take no oath.”

This explanation was satisfactory, to Albert’s great joy; for the wily knight had foreseen the great difficulty, or rather impossibility, of prevailing upon Brian de Bois-Guilbert to take such an oath before the assembly, and had invented this excuse to escape the necessity of his doing so.

The Grand Master, having allowed the apology of Albert Malvoisin, commanded the herald to stand forth and do his devoir. The trumpets then again flourished, and a herald, stepping forward, proclaimed aloud, “Oyez, oyez, oyez. Here standeth the good knight, Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, ready to do battle with any knight of free blood who will sustain the quarrel allowed and allotted to the Jewess Rebecca, to try by champion, in respect of lawful essoine
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of her own body; and to such champion the reverend and valorous Grand Master here present allows a fair field, and equal partition of sun and wind, and whatever else appertains to a fair combat.” The trumpets again sounded, and there was a dead pause of many minutes.