The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay by Maurice Hewlett (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

villain,' swore Saint-Pol between his teeth, 'so shalt thou never hang me.' But when he looked about him at his dozen of thin-faced men he believed that if Richard was not to hang him it might be necessary for him to hang himself. More, it came into his mind that there was a hand or two under him which might be anxious to save him the trouble. Being, however, a man of abundant spirit, he laughed at the summons to surrender so long as there was a horse to eat, man to shoot, or arrow for the shooting. As for fire, he believed himself impregnable by that arm; and any day succour might come from the South. Surely his Queen would not throw him to the dogs! Where was Count John if not hastening to win a realm; where King Philip if not hopeful to chastise a vassal? Daily King Richard, in no hurry, but desperately reckless, rode close to the tower and met the hardy eyes of Saint-Pol watching him from the top. Richard was a galliard fighter, as he had always been.

'Come down, Saint-Pol,' he would say, 'and dance with Limoges.'

'When I come down, sire,' the answer would be, 'there will be no dancing in your host.'

Richard took his time, and also intolerable liberties with his life. Milo lost his hair with anxiety, not daring to speak; Gaston of Béarn did dare, but was shaken off by his mad master. Des Barres, who loved him, perhaps, as well as any, never left him for long together, and wore his brain out devising shifts which might keep him away from the walls. But Richard, for this present whim of his, chose out a companion devil as heedless as himself, Mercadet namely, his brown Gascon captain, of like proportions, like mettle, like foolhardiness; and with him made the daily round, never omitting an exchange of grim banter with Saint-Pol. It was terrible to see him, without helm on his head, or reason in it, canter within range of the bow.

'Oh, Saint-Pol,' he said one day, 'if thou wert worth my pains, I would have thee down and serve thee as I did thy brother Eudo. But no; thou must be hanged, it seems.' And Saint-Pol, grinning cheerfully, answered, 'Have no fear, King, thou wilt never hang me.'

'By my soul,' said Richard back again, 'a little more of this bold gut of thine, my man, and I let thee go free.'

'Sire,' said Saint-Pol soberly, 'that were the worst of all.'

'How so, boy?'

'Because, if you forgave me, I should be required by my knighthood to forgive you; and that I will never do if I can help it. So I should live and be damned.'

'Have it then as it must be,' said Richard laughing, and turned his back. Saint-Pol could have shot him dead, but would not. 'Look, De Gurdun,' he says, 'there goes the King unmailed. Wilt thou shoot him in the back, and so end all?'

'By God, Eustace,' says Gilles, 'that I will not.'

'Why not, then?'

Gurdun said, 'Because I dare not. I am more afraid of him when he scorns me thus than when his face is upon me. Let him lead an assault upon the walls, and I will split his headpiece if I may; but I will never again try him unarmed.'

'Pouf!' said Saint-Pol; but he was of the same mind.

Then came a day when Des Barres was out upon the neighbouring hills with a company of knights, scouting. There had been rumours of hostile movement from the South, from Provence and Roussillon; of a juncture of Prince John, known to be in Gascony, with the Queen's brother of Navarre. Nothing was known certainly, but Richard judged that John might be tempted out. It was a bright cold day, cloudless, with a most bitter north-east wind singing in the bents. Des Barres, sitting his horse on the hill, blew upon his ungauntleted hand, then flacked it against his side to drive the blood back. Surveying the field with a hunter's eye, he saw King Richard ride out of the lines on his chestnut horse, Mercadet with him, and (in a green cloak) Gaston of Béarn. Richard had a red surcoat and a blown red plume in his cap. He carried no shield, and by the ease with which he turned his body to look behind him, one hand on the crupper, Des Barres was sure that he was not in mail.

'Folly of a fool!' he snorted to his neighbour, Savaric de Dreux: 'there pricks our lord the King, as if to a party of hawks.'

'Wait,' said Savaric. 'Where away now?

'To bandy gibes with Saint-Pol, pardieu. Where else should he go at this hour?'

'Saint-Pol will never do him a villainy,' said Savaric.

'No, no. But De Gurdun is there.'

'Wait now,' says Savaric again. 'Look, look! Who comes out of the smoke?'

They could see the beleaguered tower perfectly, brown and warm-looking in the sun; below it, still smoking, the village of Chaluz, a heap of charred brickwork. They saw a man in clean white come creeping out of the smoke, stooping at a run. He hid wherever he could behind the broken wall, but always ran nearer, stooped and ran with bent body over his bent knees. He worked his way thus, gradually nearer and nearer to the tower; and Des Barres watched him anxiously.

'Some camp-thief making off—'

'Look, look!' cried Savaric. The white man had come out by the tower, was now kneeling in the open; at the same moment a man slipped down a rope from the tower-top. Before he had touched earth they saw the kneeling man pull a bowstring to his ear and let fly. Next the fellow on the rope, touching ground, ran fleetly forward and, springing on the white-robed man, drove him to the earth. They saw the flash of a blade.

'That is strange warfare,' said Des Barres, greatly interested.

'There is warfare in heaven also,' said Savaric. 'See those two eagles.' Two great birds were battling in the cold blue. Feathers fell idly, like black snow-flakes; then one of the eagles heeled over, and down he came.

But when they looked towards the tower again they saw a great commotion. Men running, horses huddled together, one in red held up by one in green. Then a riderless chestnut horse looked about him and neighed. Des Barres gave a short cry. 'O God! They have shot King Richard between them. Come, Savaric, we must go down.'

'Stop again,' said that other. 'Let us sweep up those assassins as we go. There I see another thief in white.' Des Barres saw him too. 'Spur, spur!' he called to his knights; 'follow me.' He got his line in motion, they all galloped across the sunny slopes like a light cloud. But as they drove forward the play was in progress; they saw it done, as it were, in a scene. One white figure lay heaped upon the ground, another was running by the wall towards him, furtively and bent, as the first had come. The third actor, he of the tower, had not heard the runner, but was still stooped over the man he had evidently killed, groping probably for marks or papers upon him.

'Spur, spur!' cried Des Barres, and the line went rattling down. They were not in time. The white runner was too quick for the killer of his mate: he did, indeed, look round; but the other was upon him before he could rise. There was a short tussle; the two rolled over and over. Then the white-clad man got up, raised his fallen comrade, shouldered him, and sped away into the smoke of Chaluz. When Des Barres and his friends were within bowshot of the tower one man only was below it; and he lay where he had been stabbed. The white-robed murderers, the living and the dead, were lost in smoke. The King and his party were gone. Out of the tower came Saint-Pol with his men, unarmed, bareheaded, and waited silently in rank for Des Barres.

This one came up at a gallop. 'My prisoner, Count of Saint-Pol,' he called out as he came; then halted his line by throwing up his hand.

'The King has been shot, Sir Guilhem,' Saint-Pol said gravely; 'not by me. I am the King's prisoner. Take me to him, lest he die before I see his eyes.'

'Who is that dead man of yours over there?' asked Des Barres.

'His name is Sieur Gilles de Gurdun, a knight of Normandy and enemy of the King's, but dead (if dead he be) on the King's account. He killed the assassin.'

'I know that very well,' says Des Barres, 'for I saw the deed, which was a good one. I must hunt for those white-gowns. Who might they be?'

'I know nothing of them. They are no men of mine. Their robes were all white, their faces all dark, and they ran like Turks. But what can Turks do here?'

'They must be found,' said Des Barres, and sent out Savaric with half of his men.

They picked up Gilles, quite dead of two wounds, one in the back of the neck, another below the heart. Des Barres put him over his saddlebow; then took his prisoners into camp.

King Richard had been carried to his pavilion and put to bed. His physicians were with him, and the Abbot Milo, quite unmanned. Gaston of Béarn was crying like a girl at the door. The Earl of Leicester had ridden off for the Queen, Yvo Tibetot for the Count of Mortain. Des Barres learned that they had pulled out the arrow, a common one of Genoese make, but feared poison. King Richard had been shot in the right lung.

CHAPTER XVII THE KEENING

In the wan hours left to him came three women, one after another, and spoke the truth so far as they knew it each.

The first was Alois of France in the habit of a grey lady of Fontevrault, with a face more dead than her cowl, and hair like wet weed, but in her hollow eyes the fire of her mystery; who said to the watchers by the door: 'Let me in. I am the voice of old sorrow.' So they held back the curtains of the tent, and she came shuffling forward to the long body on the bed. At the sound of her skirts the King turned his altered face her way, then rolled his head back to the dark.

'Take her away,' he said in a whisper; so Des Barres stood up between him and the woman.

But Alois put her hands out, as a blind man does.

'Soul's health, Des Barres; I purge old sins. Avoid, all of you,' she said, 'and leave me with him. Save only his confessor. What I have to say must be said in secret, as it was done secretly.'

Richard sighed. 'Let her stay; and let Milo stay,' he said. The rest went out on tip-toe. Alois came and knelt at the head of the bed.

'Listen now, Richard,' said she; 'for thy last hour is near, and mine also. Twice over I have sought to tell thee, but was denied. Each time I might have done thee a service; now I will do thee good service. Thou art not guilty of thy father's death, nor he of my despair.'

The King did not turn his head, but looked up sideways, so that she saw his eye shining. His lips moved, then stuck together; so Milo put a sponge with wine upon them. Then he whispered, 'Tell me, Alois, who was guilty with thee?'

She said, 'Thy brother John of Mortain was that man. A villain is he.'

A moaning sigh escaped the King, long-drawn, shuddering, very piteous. 'Eh, Alois, Alois! Which of us four was not a villain?'

Said Alois, 'What is past is past, and I have told thee. What is to come I cannot tell thee, for the past swallows me up. Yet I say again, thy brother John is a sick villain, a secret villain, and a thief.'

'God help him, God judge him,' said Richard with another sigh. 'I can do neither, nor will not.' He moaned again, but so hopelessly, as being so weary and fordone, that Abbot Milo began to blubber out loud. Alois lifted up her drawn face, and struck her breast.

'Ah, would to God, Richard,' she cried, 'would to God I had come to thee clean! I had saved thee then from this most bitter death. For if I love thee now, judge how I had loved thee then.'

He said, with shut eyes, 'None could love me long, since none could trust me, and not I myself.' Then he said fretfully to the abbot, 'Take her away, Milo; I am tired.'

Alois, kneeling, kissed his dry forehead. 'Farewell,' she said, 'King Richard, most a king when most in bonds, and most merciful when most in need of mercy. My work is done. Remains to pray