Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (77 page)

“Be it so,” said the King; “but for thine own sake tax me not with usurpation now. Dissolve thy chapter, and depart with thy followers to thy next preceptory, if thou canst find one which has not been made the scene of treasonable conspiracy against the King of England. Or, if thou wilt, remain, to share our hospitality, and behold our justice.”

“To be a guest in the house where I should command?” said the Templar; “never! Chaplains, raise the Psalm,
Quare fremuerunt gentes?
^gu
Knights, squires, and followers of the Holy Temple, prepare to follow the banner of
Beau-seant!”

The Grand Master spoke with a dignity which confronted even that of England’s king himself, and inspired courage into his surprised and dismayed followers. They gathered around him like the sheep around the watch-dog, when they hear the baying of the wolf. But they evinced not the timidity of the scared flock: there were dark brows of defiance, and looks which menaced the hostility they dared not to proffer in words. They drew together in a dark line of spears, from which the white cloaks of the knights were visible among the dusky garments of their retainers, like the lighter-coloured edges of a sable cloud. The multitude, who had raised a clamorous shout of reprobation, paused and gazed in silence on the formidable and experienced body to which they had unwarily bade defiance, and shrunk back from their front.

The Earl of Essex, when he beheld them pause in their assembled force, dashed the rowels into his charger’s sides, and galloped backwards and forwards to array his followers, in opposition to a band so formidable. Richard alone, as if he loved the danger his presence had provoked, rode slowly along the front of the Templars, calling aloud, “What, sirs! Among so many gallant knights, will none dare splinter a spear with Richard? Sirs of the Temple! your ladies are but sun-burned, if they are not worth the shiver of a broken lance!”

“The brethren of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, riding forward in advance of their body, “fight not on such idle and profane quarrel; and not with thee, Richard of England, shall a Templar cross lance in my presence. The Pope and princes of Europe shall judge our quarrel, and whether a Christian prince has done well in bucklering the cause which thou hast to-day adopted. If unassailed, we depart assailing no one. To thine honour we refer the armour and household goods of the order which we leave behind us, and on thy conscience we lay the scandal and offence thou hast this day given to Christendom.”

With these words, and without waiting a reply, the Grand Master gave the signal of departure. Their trumpets sounded a wild march, of an Oriental character, which formed the usual signal for the Templars to advance. They changed their array from a line to a column of march, and moved off as slowly as their horses could step, as if to show it was only the will of their Grand Master, and no fear of the opposing and superior force, which compelled them to withdraw.

“By the splendour of Our Lady’s brow!” said King Richard, “it is pity of their lives that these Templars are not so trusty as they are disciplined and valiant.”

The multitude, like a timid cur which waits to bark till the object of his challenge has turned his back, raised a feeble shout as the rear of the squadron left the ground.

During the tumult which attended the retreat of the Templars, Rebecca saw and heard nothing; she was locked in the arms of her aged father, giddy, and almost senseless, with the rapid change of circumstances around her. But one word from Isaac at length recalled her scattered feelings.

“Let us go,” he said, “my dear daughter, my recovered treasure—let us go to throw ourselves at the feet of the good youth.”

“Not so,” said Rebecca. “O no—no—no; I must not at this moment dare to speak to him. Alas! I should say more than—No, my father, let us instantly leave this evil place.”

“But, my daughter,” said Isaac, “to leave him who hath come forth like a strong man with his spear and shield, holding his life as nothing, so he might redeem thy captivity; and thou, too, the daughter of a people strange unto him and his—this is service to be thankfully acknowledged.”

“It is—it is—most thankfully—most devoutly acknowledged,” said Rebecca; “it shall be still more so—but not now—for the sake of thy beloved Rachael, father, grant my request—not now!”

“Nay, but,” said Isaac, insisting, “they will deem us more thankless than mere dogs!”

“But thou seest, my dear father, that King Richard is in presence, and that—”

“True, my best—my wisest Rebecca. Let us hence—let us hence! Money he will lack, for he has just returned from Palestine, and, as they say, from prison; and pretext for exacting it, should he need any, may arise out of my simple traffic with his brother John. Away—away, let us hence!”

And hurrying his daughter in his turn, he conducted her from the lists, and by means of conveyance which he had provided, transported her safely to the house of the Rabbi Nathan.

The Jewess, whose fortunes had formed the principal interest of the day, having now retired unobserved, the attention of the populace was transferred to the Black Knight. They now filled the air with “Long life to Richard with the Lion’s Heart, and down with the usurping Templars!”

“Notwithstanding all this lip-loyalty,” said Ivanhoe to the Earl of Essex, “it was well the King took the precaution to bring thee with him, noble Earl, and so many of thy trusty followers.”

The Earl smiled and shook his head.

“Gallant Ivanhoe,” said Essex, “dost thou know our master so well, and yet suspect him of taking so wise a precaution! I was drawing towards York, having heard that Prince John was making head there, when I met King Richard, like a true knight-errant, galloping hither to achieve in his own person this adventure of the Templar and the Jewess, with his own single arm. I accompanied him with my band, almost maugre
^gv
his consent.”

“And what news from York, brave Earl?” said Ivanhoe; “will the rebels bide us there?”

“No more than December’s snow will bide July’s sun,” said the Earl; “they are dispersing; and who should come posting to bring us the news, but John himself!”

“The traitor!—the ungrateful, insolent traitor!” said Ivanhoe; “did not Richard order him into confinement?”

“O! he received him,” answered the Earl, “as if they had met after a hunting party; and, pointing to me and our men-at-arms, said, ‘Thou seest, brother, I have some angry men with me; thou wert best go to our mother, carry her my duteous affection, and abide with her until men’s minds are pacified.’”

“And this was all he said?” inquired Ivanhoe; “would not any one say that this prince invites men to treason by his clemency?”

“Just,” replied the Earl, “as the man may be said to invite death who undertakes to fight a combat, having a dangerous wound unhealed.”

“I forgive thee the jest, Lord Earl,” said Ivanhoe; “but, remember, I hazarded but my own life—Richard, the welfare of his kingdom.”

“Those,” replied Essex, “who are specially careless of their own welfare are seldom remarkably attentive to that of others. But let us haste to the castle, for Richard meditates punishing some of the subordinate members of the conspiracy, though he has pardoned their principal.”

From the judicial investigations which followed on this occasion, and which are given at length in the Wardour Manuscript, it appears that Maurice de Bracy escaped beyond seas, and went into the service of Philip of France, while Philip de Malvoisin and his brother, Albert, the preceptor of Templestowe, were executed, although Waldemar Fitzurse, the soul of the conspiracy, escaped with banishment, and Prince John, for whose behoof it was undertaken, was not even censured by his good-natured brother.
²
No one, however, pitied the fate of the two Malvoisins, who only suffered the death which they had both well deserved, by many acts of falsehood, cruelty, and oppression.

Briefly after the judicial combat, Cedric the Saxon was summoned to the court of Richard, which, for the purpose of quieting the counties that had been disturbed by the ambition of his brother, was then held at York. Cedric tushed and pshawed more than once at the message; but he refused not obedience. In fact, the return of Richard had quenched every hope that he had entertained of restoring a Saxon dynasty in England; for, whatever head the Saxons might have made in the event of a civil war, it was plain that nothing could be done under the undisputed dominion of Richard, popular as he was by his personal good qualities and military fame, although his administration was wilfully careless—now too indulgent and now allied to despotism.

But, moreover, it could not escape even Cedric’s reluctant observation that his project for an absolute union among the Saxons, by the marriage of Rowena and Athelstane, was now completely at an end, by the mutual dissent of both parties concerned. This was, indeed, an event which, in his ardour for the Saxon cause, he could not have anticipated; and even when the disinclination of both was broadly and plainly manifested, he could scarce bring himself to believe that two Saxons of royal descent should scruple, on personal grounds, at an alliance so necessary for the public weal of the nation. But it was not the less certain. Rowena had always expressed her repugnance to Athelstane, and now Athelstane was no less plain and positive in proclaiming his resolution never to pursue his addresses to the Lady Rowena. Even the natural obstinacy of Cedric sunk beneath these obstacles, where he, remaining on the point of junction, had the task of dragging a reluctant pair up to it, one with each hand. He made, however, a last vigorous attack on Athelstane, and he found that resuscitated sprout of Saxon royalty engaged, like country squires of our own day, in a furious war with the clergy.

It seems that, after all his deadly menaces against the abbot of St. Edmund’s, Athelstane’s spirit of revenge, what between the natural indolent kindness of his own disposition, what through the prayers of his mother Edith, attached, like most ladies (of the period), to the clerical order, had terminated in his keeping the abbot and his monks in the dungeons of Coningsburgh for three days on a meagre diet. For this atrocity the abbot menaced him with excommunication, and made out a dreadful list of complaints in the bowels and stomach, suffered by himself and his monks, in consequence of the tyrannical and unjust imprisonment they had sustained. With this controversy, and with the means he had adopted to counteract this clerical persecution, Cedric found the mind of his friend Athelstane so fully occupied, that it had no room for another idea. And when Rowena’s name was mentioned, the noble Athelstane prayed leave to quaff a full goblet to her health, and that she might soon be the bride of his kinsman Wilfred. It was a desperate case, therefore. There was obviously no more to be made of Athelstane; or, as Wamba expressed it, in a phrase which has descended from Saxon times to ours, he was a cock that would not fight.

There remained betwixt Cedric and the determination which the lovers desired to come to only two obstacles—his own obstinacy, and his dislike of the Norman dynasty. The former feeling gradually gave way before the endearments of his ward and the pride which he could not help nourishing in the fame of his son. Besides, he was not insensible to the honour of allying his own line to that of Alfred, when the superior claims of the descendant of Edward the Confessor were abandoned for ever. Cedric’s aversion to the Norman race of kings was also much undermined—first, by consideration of the impossibility of ridding England of the new dynasty, a feeling which goes far to create loyalty in the subject to the king
de facto;
and, secondly, by the personal attention of King Richard, who delighted in the blunt humour of Cedric, and, to use the language of the Wardour Manuscript, so dealt with the noble Saxon that, ere he had been a guest at court for seven days, he had given his consent to the marriage of his ward Rowena and his son Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

The nuptials of our hero, thus formally approved by his father, were celebrated in the most august of temples, the noble minister of York. The King himself attended, and, from the countenance which he afforded on this and other occasions to the distressed and hitherto degraded Saxons, gave them a safer and more certain prospect of attaining their just rights than they could reasonably hope from the precarious chance of a civil war. The church gave her full solemnities, graced with all the splendour which she of Rome knows how to apply with such brilliant effect.

Gurth, gallantly apparelled, attended as esquire upon his young master, whom he had served so faithfully, and the magnanimous Wamba, decorated with a new cap and a most gorgeous set of silver bells. Sharers of Wilfred’s dangers and adversity, they remained, as they had a right to expect, the partakers of his more prosperous career.

But, besides this domestic retinue, these distinguished nuptials were celebrated by the attendance of the high-born Normans, as well as Saxons, joined with the universal jubilee of the lower orders, that marked the marriage of two individuals as a pledge of the future peace and harmony betwixt two races, which, since that period, have been so completely mingled that the distinction has become wholly invisible. Cedric lived to see this union approximate towards its completion; for, as the two nations mixed in society and formed intermarriages with each other, the Normans abated their scorn, and the Saxons were refined from their rusticity. But it was not until the reign of Edward the Third that the mixed language, now termed English, was spoken at the court of London,
³
and that the hostile distinction of Norman and Saxon seems entirely to have disappeared.

It was upon the second morning after this happy bridal that the Lady Rowena was made acquainted by her handmaid Elgitha, that a damsel desired admission to her presence, and solicited that their parley might be without witness. Rowena wondered, hesitated, became curious, and ended by commanding the damsel to be admitted, and her attendants to withdraw.