ON THE HIGHWAY
That was a long night. I fell asleep with my head in my arms over the
table with the scrivener opposite me. De Marsac took no chances of my
escape. He left four men in the room, two to stand guard in turn while
the others snatched a wink of sleep. After he had cleared the plates and
dishes away the landlord disappeared. Once in a while I awoke and looked
around. But this time I was sure there would be no rescue, no helping
hand.
The first streaks of dawn were struggling in at the little window when I
got to my feet. My muscles were as sore as if I had been dragged a mile
through a mire. I yawned and stretched myself and listened for a moment
to the birds chirping and quarreling in the ivy that covered the outer
walls of the inn.
One of my guards brought breakfast for us all. It was then that I
observed for the first that my companion, the scrivener, was nowhere to
be seen. He must have slipped out in the dead of night, unnoticed. The
men looked at each other in question, puzzled, but I smiled to myself. I
knew it was one of those little tricks that he so dearly loved to play.
We went once again out on the highway. The sun was up big and red. Three
of the men remained at the inn, but the fourth, a fellow called Pierre,
was to lead me far down the valley of the Loire. For days I was to be
his prisoner. I was to eat and sleep with him. He was to be all the
companion I was to have, so I determined I would make the best of it and
be on as friendly a footing as I could.
But I found from the first that he was the surliest and coarsest man
alive. During the afternoon, he scarcely uttered a word, but went on
grumbling and muttering to himself. His face wore a perpetual scowl. He
kicked viciously at the stones along the road as if they were actually
his enemies. He complained of the long journey ahead of us.
“One man gets the money,” he said under his breath. “Another does the
work.”
“You don’t have to go,” I said. “If you say the word, I’ll leave you.”
He shot a look at me that was enough to kill me.
“Try it,” he growled. And his jaws came together with a snap.
After that I shrank back into my shell. I knew I was in company with a
savage. At the slightest sign of trifling, I was convinced, he would
stick a dagger into my heart and leave me on the road to die.
At noon we halted in the shade of the trees along the side of the
highway. He took from his shoulder a packet which he had brought from
the inn. In it were a lump of cheese and a length of hard bread. With as
much deliberation as he could show, he took a dagger from his coat and
wiped the blade two or three times over the knees of his trousers. Then
he cut the cheese into squares and tore the bread into pieces with his
hands. As though I were only an animal to be fed, he tossed them to me
through the air.
The first piece flew past me and fell into the dirt. The second landed
at my feet. Another caught me in the chest and tumbled in between my
folded hands. I was hungry, of course, but the manner of the man
sickened me. So I sat there glaring into his face.
He fell to with the appetite of a bear. He stuffed one lump after
another between his teeth and shoved them into his mouth with his thumb.
He gulped to swallow and that so hard that I thought he would choke.
When he had eaten twice as much as an ordinary man he rose and threw
what remained into my lap.
“You should starve,” he said, “—you spy!”
“I am no spy,” I declared.
He made no answer but gave me a look that was filled with hate.
I picked up the pieces that were clean and began to eat slowly. Thoughts
of my home and of the comfort I had there started to run through my
mind. A burning anger rose within me that I should be treated thus by a
fellow who was no equal of mine—who should have been glad to run at my
beck and call.
Without a word of warning he came over and caught me by the collar. With
a swift jerk he landed me on my feet. I was amazed at the suddenness of
it and the enormous strength of the man. I was sure that he could have
held me in the air with his outstretched arm as easily as I could have
held a bundle of straw.
We were on the road again, both going along in silence. During the
afternoon, I noticed small groups of men, some clad as ordinary
soldiers, some in finer dress like captains and officers, others on
horseback with armor and coats of mail. I had seen the like before in
the village at home to be sure, for in my day there was always war in
this or that part of France to attract the minds of men. But what struck
me was that these were all going in the same direction (towards the
west); they all seemed bent on the same errand; and they were so
numerous that I was set wondering.
That night we found no place in an inn. The common room was crowded to
the doors with swashbuckling soldiers of every kind. Loud talk and
boasting filled the air, together with the clanking of swords, the
thumping of heavy boots on the floor, the clamoring of men hungry for
their supper, quarrels over this or that and even blows struck and
returned.
We were lucky to get any food at all, but the worst of it all was that
we were forced to sleep in the open. Pierre found a spot in the shelter
of the barn where we would be protected from the wind. He brought an
armful of straw and scattered it over the ground. Then he took from his
pockets two strands of rope and bade me lie down. He tied one strand
firmly about my right wrist, the other about my left. The ends he drew
apart in opposite directions, tying one to a post at the corner of the
barn, the other he fastened on the other side of me to a stone that was
imbedded in the soil.
It was as though I was stretched out like a cross. I could move my hands
outwards as far as I liked. But when I drew them together as far as the
ropes allowed, they remained more than a foot apart. If I rolled over on
my side the one arm was behind me and the other in front. If I had tried
to get to my feet, I wouldn’t have been halfway up before I would have
been forced down again.
It was thus I passed the night. You can imagine that I slept only in
fits and starts, for as soon as I was in a doze I was sure to stir and
the tautness of the ropes, with the pain awakened me.
The day came as a relief. My captor let me lie until he brought me my
breakfast. Then he loosed my bonds. After we had eaten we started out on
the journey that was becoming irksome and even a torment.
That day passed about the same as the first. We toiled along the road
for the most part in gloomy silence. The soldiers were pouring in
thicker and thicker. Sometimes as many as two hundred of them in a
single body passed us so that we were forced to leave the highway and
stand on the banks to let them go by.
At another time later on a great lord from the east swept along. He was
dressed in shining armor from head to heel. In his helmet waved a plume
of feathers dyed red and white and a broadsword hung in its glittering
scabbard by his side. In his train were at least five hundred followers,
some of them of almost as high degree as he; others with long lances
rode directly behind him, while further back a troop of archers
completed the array.
It was a sight to admire. From where we had halted on the side of the
road, my captor pointed at them with his finger.
“That,” said he, “is what you have come to see.”
His grimness puzzled me.
“Has a war broken out?” I asked.
“Not yet,” was the answer, “—and it will never be called a war. These
men are on their way to crush the Black Prince of England.”
I drew a long breath.
“—the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “Why, you can’t do that. There is not
a leader alive who can cope with him in the field.”
A slow smile came over his face.
“Within a week, there will be fifteen thousand men on their way down
this valley,” he replied. “The Black Prince is far off towards the west.
He is as ignorant of this preparation as a child.”
“But he’ll learn of it?” I said.
My captor shook his head.
“He’ll be struck with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. We’re going to
cut him off at Poitiers—when he starts back to his headquarters at
Bordeaux.” He snapped his fingers in contempt. “He has seven thousand
men who are half starved, weak from long marches and disease. What can
they do against these?”
He pointed with pride at the men marching past.
“When the Black Prince is a prisoner of the King of France,” he went on,
scowling in my face with a wicked grin, “we shall move against
Normandy——”
“The Norman Barons can defeat any army the French can send against
them!” I cried. “They have proved that more than once.”
He clenched his fingers over my arm till the pain of it shot up through
my shoulder.
“No, they won’t,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They won’t have time to
unite.”
“I see it all now,” I cried again. “That is why De Marsac is so anxious.
He thinks he has a claim on our estates already. He can’t wait——”
A hard expression covered his countenance.
“Before the snow flies I shall be toasting my shins before the
fire-place in your house,” my captor boasted. “De Marsac has promised
that I shall be the bailiff when he is master there.”
A long breath like a sob broke from my throat. It was plain to me now
for the first time why I was sent on this errand down the valley of the
Loire.
“Have you ever heard of a youth called ‘Charles of Gramont’?” I
demanded.
“Of course,” came the answer, “he’s the son of the old Count. He was a
prisoner of ours for a while—but escaped——”
“—escaped?” The word jumped from my mouth.
“Yes,” was the reply. “Gone. Like smoke in the air.”
“He has joined the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “I am glad of that. He
will let him know of the danger he is in.”
My captor threw back his head and uttered a low grunt that was meant for
a laugh.
“A fly couldn’t get out of this valley—or into it—unless we knew it,” he
said. “That lad has either starved to death or is hiding somewhere in
the woods.”
A thrill of joy ran up and down every nerve in my body. For a while I
stood staring at the soldiers passing before us, but with eyes that did
not see. A world of new thoughts was seething in my brain. Then a fresh
notion came to me.
“Just to think how I have wasted my time,” I said slyly to my captor. “I
was sent here to find him. I might as well have remained at home.”
He turned on me with a knowing look.
“You weren’t sent here for any purpose of the kind,” he answered with as
much cunning as he could show. “You came to learn of this army that is
passing down the valley of the Loire. You were to find out the numbers
of it, where it was heading, how soon it would be ready to strike. In
one word you were sent here as a spy!”
If I had had the strength, I would have felled him with a blow. Yet for
all that I now realized that every syllable he uttered was the naked
truth. If I had been told in the beginning that I was to act as a sneak,
(as he said “a spy”) I would have refused boldly and I was sent in
blindness to follow a false trail. I was duped into a position that was
contrary to my ideas of manliness and honor.
I had information that the Black Prince would give half a kingdom to
know. The cruelties of De Marsac and the men whom he had set on my heels
were as humiliating as ever I had suffered. His trickery and deceit were
of the kind that no man of self-respect would practice. It was his aim
to drive my brother and me from the home which our family had enjoyed
for generations. All these things galled me and drove me to a kind of
desperation. The thought came slowly to me to be sure, but while I stood
gazing on the soldiers whose mission was to destroy the only friend that
Normandy had at this time—the Black Prince—I resolved that I would go no
further with my captor than force compelled me. I would watch every
opportunity. I would play the fox to the last degree. When the time came
I would try once more to escape. If I could get through that circle of
men who guarded the Valley of the Loire I would risk my very life to
inform the Black Prince of the plans that were ripening against him, for
I knew that if I did, I would be saving my home in Normandy.