“Think you that mine uncle of Burgundy will expect to see us in person,
come to defend our rights?”
“Thou art my brave girl. Wouldst that thy father wert here to guard and
guide thee!”
But her mother looked anxious, and as she rode in her litter near her
daughter, it was she who from time to time called to her side those
brave nobles who had espoused her daughter’s cause, and to whose advice
she looked to bring the assault to a successful conclusion.
After the first day’s march Jacqueline’s bright confidence was shaken.
Wearied with being all day in the saddle and bearing the weight of her
suit of armour, even though the shirt was of the finest Milan steel and
flexible and light, Jacqueline dismissed all her attendants, and begged
her mother to bide with her for a space before going to rest.
When all were gone and they were alone together and the curtains to the
tent secured, poor Jacqueline, but a tired girl after all, cast herself
down beside her mother, and hid her face in her lap.
“Oh, mother,” cried she, “methinks I’d give all Dordrecht to be once
more in our own palace in The Hague, safe sheltered in mine own room,
and rid of this armour which chafes me so!”
“Nay, daughter, speak not so loud, bend thy lips to mine ear, for truly
it would shame you much should the men-at-arms without hear thy
plaints.”
“But, mother—”
“Lower, dear child, speak lower. What! weeping? Countess of Hainault and
Daughter of Holland shedding tears?”
“Thy daughter was I, mother, before I was Daughter of Holland. So
fearsome am I of those cruel men we go to meet, with their spears and
arrows. Methinks that already I feel them in my flesh”; and at the very
thought there were fresh showers of tears.
“Can this be my brave Princess? Is this the maid of whom her father
said, ‘Brave as a lad, with more wisdom than her years, and better
fitted to rule than many an elder one’? Sure, child, the hailstones have
in truth bewitched thee!”
“Ah, mother, I will be brave to-morrow, since needs I must. But say thou
wilt not leave me this night? Stay with me; the darkness affrights me,
mother.”
“Truly I had no thought not to stay with thee, dear child. See, give me
thy hand, and I will sit beside thy couch till thou art fast asleep.”
Jacqueline threw herself on the couch which had been hastily spread in
her tent, and made soft with the skins of fox and of bear, and drew over
her buckskin doublet a cloak of frieze.
“Kiss me, mother, as though I were once more thy little daughter, and
leave me not”; and holding her mother’s hand as she had done in
babyhood, our poor little Daughter of Holland, from very weariness, fell
fast asleep.
Before dawn the next day all the camp was astir. The sound of the
armourers at work, the stamping and neighing of horses, the shouts of
the soldiers as they hurried about their labour, made a din quite at
variance with the quiet of the night, when the only sounds which
disturbed the solitude were the cries of the sentries that all was well,
and the occasional whinny of some restive horse.
Yet still Jacqueline slept on, and by her side her mother watched,
hoping that the sounds from without would penetrate the deep sleep of
the weary girl. At last, at the door of the tent itself, sounded the
notes of the bugle, and Jacqueline started up, her eyes clear and
flashing, as she turned to the patient watcher at her side.
“Once more Countess of Hainault, dearest lady,” she cried, “Jacqueline
the little girl has fled back to her childhood.”
Her mother drew a long breath and smiled in return.
“Let us praise St. James for that,” she answered, and pushed aside the
hanging folds that covered the opening to the tent, so that the fresh
morning air would sweep within.
“Hail, Lady, a bright awakening and a joyous day”; and forward pressed
two pages, special attendants to Jacqueline herself, and like her
dressed in suits of bright armour. But while theirs glittered as bravely
as hers, on her helmet, on her shield, and on any smallest spot which
offered a space for the tool of the goldsmith, there were wrought the
various heraldic devices which belonged to the Countess by right of her
great and royal descent.
The younger of the two pages—so young in fact that his cheek was scarce
less rosy and fair than that of his young mistress—bore her sword and
spear, which gleamed in the cold beams of the wintry sun. The elder of
the two carried her shield and pennon, the last of fine blue silk,
showing the arms of Bavaria quartered with those of Hainault-Holland,
and watching over these was deftly embroidered the image of the Virgin
and Child.
Jacqueline came to the door of her tent, and as her eyes watched the
busy scene, she looked both rested and well pleased.
“A fair omen for the Daughter of Holland this day,” she said, and
pointed towards where the lad stood with her pennon. The bright clouds
in the sky had but touched the faces of the Holy Virgin and the Child,
and reflected in the silver threads with which they were wrought, caused
them to glow with almost the colours of true flesh and blood.
“The Countess speaks well,” said Eberhard, Lord of Hoogtwoude, than whom
Jacqueline had no more faithful follower, and who had just come up from
the camp to see how the young Countess had rested.
“A fair sleep and a long one, thanks to my lady mother,” said
Jacqueline, turning to her with a loving glance, “who was ever wont to
take upon her own shoulders the burden of my humours.”
Full well did Jacqueline repay the kindness of her mother, by her love
for that lady which her dignity never caused her for a moment to
conceal. Going once more within the tent, she bathed in water fresh and
cold, and though the air was a thought too keen, she had the armourer
summoned to rivet on her greaves, so that the legs below the knee should
be well protected, lest some who were on foot among the enemy might get
near and do her harm.
“Bring my helmet,” next she ordered, “and sling it to my saddle bow, for
this cap of velvet shall serve me to wear till we near the troops which
my false uncle hath gathered.”