“The tears I shed must ever fall.
I weep not for an absent swain;
For time may happier hours recall,
And parted lovers meet again.
“I weep not for the silent dead.
Their pains are past, their sorrows o'er;
And those that loved their steps must tread,
When death shall join to part no more.”
But worse than absence, worse than death,
She wept her lover's sullied fame,
And, fired with all the pride of birth,
She wept a soldier's injured name.
BALLAD.
The frank and bold voice of Richard was heard in joyous gratulation.
“Thomas de Vaux! stout Tom of the Gills! by the head of King Henry, thou
art welcome to me as ever was flask of wine to a jolly toper! I should
scarce have known how to order my battle-array, unless I had thy bulky
form in mine eye as a landmark to form my ranks upon. We shall have
blows anon, Thomas, if the saints be gracious to us; and had we fought
in thine absence, I would have looked to hear of thy being found hanging
upon an elder-tree.”
“I should have borne my disappointment with more Christian patience,
I trust,” said Thomas de Vaux, “than to have died the death of an
apostate. But I thank your Grace for my welcome, which is the more
generous, as it respects a banquet of blows, of which, saving your
pleasure, you are ever too apt to engross the larger share. But here
have I brought one to whom your Grace will, I know, give a yet warmer
welcome.”
The person who now stepped forward to make obeisance to Richard was a
young man of low stature and slight form. His dress was as modest as his
figure was unimpressive; but he bore on his bonnet a gold buckle, with a
gem, the lustre of which could only be rivalled by the brilliancy of
the eye which the bonnet shaded. It was the only striking feature in his
countenance; but when once noticed, it ever made a strong impression on
the spectator. About his neck there hung in a scarf of sky-blue silk a
WREST as it was called--that is, the key with which a harp is tuned, and
which was of solid gold.
This personage would have kneeled reverently to Richard, but the Monarch
raised him in joyful haste, pressed him to his bosom warmly, and kissed
him on either side of the face.
“Blondel de Nesle!” he exclaimed joyfully--“welcome from Cyprus, my king
of minstrels!--welcome to the King of England, who rates not his own
dignity more highly than he does thine. I have been sick, man, and, by
my soul, I believe it was for lack of thee; for, were I half way to the
gate of heaven, methinks thy strains could call me back. And what news,
my gentle master, from the land of the lyre? Anything fresh from the
TROUVEURS of Provence? Anything from the minstrels of merry Normandy?
Above all, hast thou thyself been busy? But I need not ask thee--thou
canst not be idle if thou wouldst; thy noble qualities are like a fire
burning within, and compel thee to pour thyself out in music and song.”
“Something I have learned, and something I have done, noble King,”
answered the celebrated Blondel, with a retiring modesty which all
Richard's enthusiastic admiration of his skill had been unable to
banish.
“We will hear thee, man--we will hear thee instantly,” said the King.
Then, touching Blondel's shoulder kindly, he added, “That is, if thou
art not fatigued with thy journey; for I would sooner ride my best horse
to death than injure a note of thy voice.”
“My voice is, as ever, at the service of my royal patron,” said Blondel;
“but your Majesty,” he added, looking at some papers on the table,
“seems more importantly engaged, and the hour waxes late.”
“Not a whit, man, not a whit, my dearest Blondel. I did but sketch an
array of battle against the Saracens, a thing of a moment, almost as
soon done as the routing of them.”
“Methinks, however,” said Thomas de Vaux, “it were not unfit to inquire
what soldiers your Grace hath to array. I bring reports on that subject
from Ascalon.”
“Thou art a mule, Thomas,” said the King--“a very mule for dullness
and obstinacy! Come, nobles--a hall--a hall--range ye around him! Give
Blondel the tabouret. Where is his harp-bearer?--or, soft, lend him my
harp, his own may be damaged by the journey.”
“I would your Grace would take my report,” said Thomas de Vaux. “I have
ridden far, and have more list to my bed than to have my ears tickled.”
“THY ears tickled!” said the King; “that must be with a woodcock's
feather, and not with sweet sounds. Hark thee, Thomas, do thine ears
know the singing of Blondel from the braying of an ass?”
“In faith, my liege,” replied Thomas, “I cannot well say; but setting
Blondel out of the question, who is a born gentleman, and doubtless of
high acquirements, I shall never, for the sake of your Grace's question,
look on a minstrel but I shall think upon an ass.”
“And might not your manners,” said Richard, “have excepted me, who am a
gentleman born as well as Blondel, and, like him, a guild-brother of the
joyeuse science?”
“Your Grace should remember,” said De Vaux, smiling, “that 'tis useless
asking for manners from a mule.”
“Most truly spoken,” said the King; “and an ill-conditioned animal thou
art. But come hither, master mule, and be unloaded, that thou mayest get
thee to thy litter, without any music being wasted on thee. Meantime do
thou, good brother of Salisbury, go to our consort's tent, and tell
her that Blondel has arrived, with his budget fraught with the newest
minstrelsy. Bid her come hither instantly, and do thou escort her, and
see that our cousin, Edith Plantagenet, remain not behind.”
His eye then rested for a moment on the Nubian, with that expression of
doubtful meaning which his countenance usually displayed when he looked
at him.
“Ha, our silent and secret messenger returned?--Stand up, slave, behind
the back of De Neville, and thou shalt hear presently sounds which will
make thee bless God that He afflicted thee rather with dumbness than
deafness.”
So saying, he turned from the rest of the company towards De Vaux, and
plunged instantly into the military details which that baron laid before
him.
About the time that the Lord of Gilsland had finished his audience, a
messenger announced that the Queen and her attendants were approaching
the royal tent.--“A flask of wine, ho!” said the King; “of old King
Isaac's long-saved Cyprus, which we won when we stormed Famagosta. Fill
to the stout Lord of Gilsland, gentles--a more careful and faithful
servant never had any prince.”
“I am glad,” said Thomas de Vaux, “that your Grace finds the mule a
useful slave, though his voice be less musical than horse-hair or wire.”
“What, thou canst not yet digest that quip of the mule?” said Richard.
“Wash it down with a brimming flagon, man, or thou wilt choke upon it.
Why, so--well pulled!--and now I will tell thee, thou art a soldier
as well as I, and we must brook each other's jests in the hall as each
other's blows in the tourney, and love each other the harder we hit.
By my faith, if thou didst not hit me as hard as I did thee in our late
encounter! thou gavest all thy wit to the thrust. But here lies the
difference betwixt thee and Blondel. Thou art but my comrade--I might
say my pupil--in the art of war; Blondel is my master in the science of
minstrelsy and music. To thee I permit the freedom of intimacy; to him
I must do reverence, as to my superior in his art. Come, man, be not
peevish, but remain and hear our glee.”
“To see your Majesty in such cheerful mood,” said the Lord of Gilsland,
“by my faith, I could remain till Blondel had achieved the great romance
of King Arthur, which lasts for three days.”
“We will not tax your patience so deeply,” said the King. “But see,
yonder glare of torches without shows that our consort approaches. Away
to receive her, man, and win thyself grace in the brightest eyes of
Christendom. Nay, never stop to adjust thy cloak. See, thou hast let
Neville come between the wind and the sails of thy galley.”
“He was never before me in the field of battle,” said De Vaux, not
greatly pleased to see himself anticipated by the more active service of
the chamberlain.
“No, neither he nor any one went before thee there, my good Tom of the
Gills,” said the King, “unless it was ourself, now and then.”
“Ay, my liege,” said De Vaux, “and let us do justice to the unfortunate.
The unhappy Knight of the Leopard hath been before me too, at a season;
for, look you, he weighs less on horseback, and so--”
“Hush!” said the King, interrupting him in a peremptory tone, “not a
word of him,” and instantly stepped forward to greet his royal consort;
and when he had done so, he presented to her Blondel, as king of
minstrelsy and his master in the gay science. Berengaria, who well knew
that her royal husband's passion for poetry and music almost equalled
his appetite for warlike fame, and that Blondel was his especial
favourite, took anxious care to receive him with all the flattering
distinctions due to one whom the King delighted to honour. Yet it was
evident that, though Blondel made suitable returns to the compliments
showered on him something too abundantly by the royal beauty, he owned
with deeper reverence and more humble gratitude the simple and graceful
welcome of Edith, whose kindly greeting appeared to him, perhaps,
sincere in proportion to its brevity and simplicity.
Both the Queen and her royal husband were aware of this distinction, and
Richard, seeing his consort somewhat piqued at the preference assigned
to his cousin, by which perhaps he himself did not feel much gratified,
said in the hearing of both, “We minstrels, Berengaria, as thou mayest
see by the bearing of our master Blondel, pay more reverence to a severe
judge like our kinswoman than to a kindly, partial friend like thyself,
who is willing to take our worth upon trust.”
Edith was moved by this sarcasm of her royal kinsman, and hesitated
not to reply that, “To be a harsh and severe judge was not an attribute
proper to her alone of all the Plantagenets.”
She had perhaps said more, having some touch of the temper of that
house, which, deriving their name and cognizance from the lowly broom
(PLANTA GENISTA), assumed as an emblem of humility, were perhaps one
of the proudest families that ever ruled in England; but her eye, when
kindling in her reply, suddenly caught those of the Nubian, although he
endeavoured to conceal himself behind the nobles who were present,
and she sunk upon a seat, turning so pale that Queen Berengaria deemed
herself obliged to call for water and essences, and to go through the
other ceremonies appropriate to a lady's swoon. Richard, who better
estimated Edith's strength of mind, called to Blondel to assume his seat
and commence his lay, declaring that minstrelsy was worth every other
recipe to recall a Plantagenet to life. “Sing us,” he said, “that song
of the Bloody Vest, of which thou didst formerly give me the argument
ere I left Cyprus. Thou must be perfect in it by this time, or, as our
yeomen say, thy bow is broken.”
The anxious eye of the minstrel, however, dwelt on Edith, and it was
not till he observed her returning colour that he obeyed the repeated
commands of the King. Then, accompanying his voice with the harp, so as
to grace, but yet not drown, the sense of what he sung, he chanted in
a sort of recitative one of those ancient adventures of love and
knighthood which were wont of yore to win the public attention. So soon
as he began to prelude, the insignificance of his personal appearance
seemed to disappear, and his countenance glowed with energy and
inspiration. His full, manly, mellow voice, so absolutely under command
of the purest taste, thrilled on every ear and to every heart. Richard,
rejoiced as after victory, called out the appropriate summons for
silence, “Listen, lords, in bower and hall”; while, with the zeal of a
patron at once and a pupil, he arranged the circle around, and hushed
them into silence; and he himself sat down with an air of expectation
and interest, not altogether unmixed with the gravity of the professed
critic. The courtiers turned their eyes on the King, that they might be
ready to trace and imitate the emotions his features should express, and
Thomas de Vaux yawned tremendously, as one who submitted unwillingly
to a wearisome penance. The song of Blondel was of course in the Norman
language, but the verses which follow express its meaning and its
manner.
THE BLOODY VEST.
'Twas near the fair city of Benevent,
When the sun was setting on bough and bent,
And knights were preparing in bower and tent,
On the eve of the Baptist's tournament;
When in Lincoln green a stripling gent,
Well seeming a page by a princess sent,
Wander'd the camp, and, still as he went,
Inquired for the Englishman, Thomas a Kent.
Far hath he far'd, and farther must fare,
Till he finds his pavilion nor stately nor rare,--
Little save iron and steel was there;
And, as lacking the coin to pay armourer's care,
With his sinewy arms to the shoulders bare,
The good knight with hammer and file did repair
The mail that to-morrow must see him wear,
For the honour of Saint John and his lady fair.
“Thus speaks my lady,” the page said he,
And the knight bent lowly both head and knee,
“She is Benevent's Princess so high in degree,
And thou art as lowly as knight may well be--
He that would climb so lofty a tree,
Or spring such a gulf as divides her from thee,
Must dare some high deed, by which all men may see
His ambition is back'd by his hie chivalrie.
“Therefore thus speaks my lady,” the fair page he said,
And the knight lowly louted with hand and with head,
“Fling aside the good armour in which thou art clad,
And don thou this weed of her night-gear instead,
For a hauberk of steel, a kirtle of thread;
And charge, thus attir'd, in the tournament dread,
And fight as thy wont is where most blood is shed,
And bring honour away, or remain with the dead.”
Untroubled in his look, and untroubled in his breast, The knight the
weed hath taken, and reverently hath kiss'd. “Now blessed be the moment,
the messenger be blest! Much honour'd do I hold me in my lady's high
behest; And say unto my lady, in this dear night-weed dress'd, To the
best armed champion I will not veil my crest; But if I live and bear me
well 'tis her turn to take the test.” Here, gentles, ends the foremost
fytte of the Lay of the Bloody Vest.
“Thou hast changed the measure upon us unawares in that last couplet, my
Blondel,” said the King.
“Most true, my lord,” said Blondel. “I rendered the verses from the
Italian of an old harper whom I met in Cyprus, and not having had time
either to translate it accurately or commit it to memory, I am fain to
supply gaps in the music and the verse as I can upon the spur of the
moment, as you see boors mend a quickset fence with a fagot.”
“Nay, on my faith,” said the King, “I like these rattling, rolling
Alexandrines. Methinks they come more twangingly off to the music than
that briefer measure.”
“Both are licensed, as is well known to your Grace,” answered Blondel.
“They are so, Blondel,” said Richard, “yet methinks the scene where
there is like to be fighting will go best on in these same thundering
Alexandrines, which sound like the charge of cavalry, while the other
measure is but like the sidelong amble of a lady's palfrey.”
“It shall be as your Grace pleases,” replied Blondel, and began again to
prelude.
“Nay, first cherish thy fancy with a cup of fiery Chios wine,” said
the King. “And hark thee, I would have thee fling away that new-fangled
restriction of thine, of terminating in accurate and similar rhymes.
They are a constraint on thy flow of fancy, and make thee resemble a man
dancing in fetters.”
“The fetters are easily flung off, at least,” said Blondel, again
sweeping his fingers over the strings, as one who would rather have
played than listened to criticism.
“But why put them on, man?” continued the King. “Wherefore thrust thy
genius into iron bracelets? I marvel how you got forward at all. I am
sure I should not have been able to compose a stanza in yonder hampered
measure.”
Blondel looked down, and busied himself with the strings of his harp, to
hide an involuntary smile which crept over his features; but it escaped
not Richard's observation.
“By my faith, thou laughest at me, Blondel,” he said; “and, in good
truth, every man deserves it who presumes to play the master when he
should be the pupil. But we kings get bad habits of self-opinion. Come,
on with thy lay, dearest Blondel--on after thine own fashion, better
than aught that we can suggest, though we must needs be talking.”
Blondel resumed the lay; but as extemporaneous composition was familiar
to him, he failed not to comply with the King's hints, and was perhaps
not displeased to show with how much ease he could new-model a poem,
even while in the act of recitation.
THE BLOODY VEST.
FYTTE SECOND.
The Baptist's fair morrow beheld gallant feats--
There was winning of honour and losing of seats;
There was hewing with falchions and splintering of staves--
The victors won glory, the vanquish'd won graves.
Oh, many a knight there fought bravely and well,
Yet one was accounted his peers to excel,
And 'twas he whose sole armour on body and breast
Seem'd the weed of a damsel when bouned for her rest.
There were some dealt him wounds that were bloody and sore,
But others respected his plight, and forbore.
“It is some oath of honour,” they said, “and I trow,
'Twere unknightly to slay him achieving his vow.”
Then the Prince, for his sake, bade the tournament cease--
He flung down his warder, the trumpets sung peace;
And the judges declare, and competitors yield,
That the Knight of the Night-gear was first in the field.
The feast it was nigh, and the mass it was nigher,
When before the fair Princess low looted a squire,
And deliver'd a garment unseemly to view,
With sword-cut and spear-thrust, all hack'd and pierc'd through;
All rent and all tatter'd, all clotted with blood,
With foam of the horses, with dust, and with mud;
Not the point of that lady's small finger, I ween,
Could have rested on spot was unsullied and clean.
“This token my master, Sir Thomas a Kent,
Restores to the Princess of fair Benevent;
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit,
He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit;
Through life's utmost peril the prize I have won,
And now must the faith of my mistress be shown:
For she who prompts knights on such danger to run
Must avouch his true service in front of the sun.
“'I restore,' says my master, 'the garment I've worn,
And I claim of the Princess to don it in turn;
For its stains and its rents she should prize it the more,
Since by shame 'tis unsullied, though crimson'd with gore.'”
Then deep blush'd the Princess--yet kiss'd she and press'd
The blood-spotted robes to her lips and her breast.
“Go tell my true knight, church and chamber shall show
If I value the blood on this garment or no.”
And when it was time for the nobles to pass,
In solemn procession to minster and mass,
The first walk'd the Princess in purple and pall,
But the blood-besmear'd night-robe she wore over all;
And eke, in the hall, where they all sat at dine,
When she knelt to her father and proffer'd the wine,
Over all her rich robes and state jewels she wore
That wimple unseemly bedabbled with gore.
Then lords whisper'd ladies, as well you may think,
And ladies replied with nod, titter, and wink;
And the Prince, who in anger and shame had look'd down,
Turn'd at length to his daughter, and spoke with a frown:
“Now since thou hast publish'd thy folly and guilt,
E'en atone with thy hand for the blood thou hast spilt;
Yet sore for your boldness you both will repent,
When you wander as exiles from fair Benevent.”
Then out spoke stout Thomas, in hall where he stood,
Exhausted and feeble, but dauntless of mood:
“The blood that I lost for this daughter of thine,
I pour'd forth as freely as flask gives its wine;
And if for my sake she brooks penance and blame,
Do not doubt I will save her from suffering and shame;
And light will she reck of thy princedom and rent,
When I hail her, in England, the Countess of Kent.”
A murmur of applause ran through the assembly, following the example
of Richard himself, who loaded with praises his favourite minstrel, and
ended by presenting him with a ring of considerable value. The Queen
hastened to distinguish the favourite by a rich bracelet, and many of
the nobles who were present followed the royal example.
“Is our cousin Edith,” said the King, “become insensible to the sound of
the harp she once loved?”
“She thanks Blondel for his lay,” replied Edith, “but doubly the
kindness of the kinsman who suggested it.”
“Thou art angry, cousin,” said the King; “angry because thou hast heard
of a woman more wayward than thyself. But you escape me not. I will walk
a space homeward with you towards the Queen's pavilion. We must have
conference together ere the night has waned into morning.”
The Queen and her attendants were now on foot, and the other guests
withdrew from the royal tent. A train with blazing torches, and an
escort of archers, awaited Berengaria without the pavilion, and she was
soon on her way homeward. Richard, as he had proposed, walked beside
his kinswoman, and compelled her to accept of his arm as her support, so
that they could speak to each other without being overheard.
“What answer, then, am I to return to the noble Soldan?” said Richard.
“The kings and princes are falling from me, Edith; this new quarrel hath
alienated them once more. I would do something for the Holy Sepulchre by
composition, if not by victory; and the chance of my doing this depends,
alas, on the caprice of a woman. I would lay my single spear in the rest
against ten of the best lances in Christendom, rather than argue with a
wilful wench who knows not what is for her own good. What answer, coz,
am I to return to the Soldan? It must be decisive.”
“Tell him,” said Edith, “that the poorest of the Plantagenets will
rather wed with misery than with misbelief.”
“Shall I say with slavery, Edith?” said the King. “Methinks that is
nearer thy thoughts.”
“There is no room,” said Edith, “for the suspicion you so grossly
insinuate. Slavery of the body might have been pitied, but that of the
soul is only to be despised. Shame to thee, King of merry England. Thou
hast enthralled both the limbs and the spirit of a knight, one scarce
less famed than thyself.”
“Should I not prevent my kinswoman from drinking poison, by sullying
the vessel which contained it, if I saw no other means of disgusting her
with the fatal liquor?” replied the King.
“It is thyself,” answered Edith, “that would press me to drink poison,
because it is proffered in a golden chalice.”
“Edith,” said Richard, “I cannot force thy resolution; but beware you
shut not the door which Heaven opens. The hermit of Engaddi--he whom
Popes and Councils have regarded as a prophet--hath read in the stars
that thy marriage shall reconcile me with a powerful enemy, and that thy
husband shall be Christian, leaving thus the fairest ground to hope that
the conversion of the Soldan, and the bringing in of the sons of Ishmael
to the pale of the church, will be the consequence of thy wedding with
Saladin. Come, thou must make some sacrifice rather than mar such happy
prospects.”
“Men may sacrifice rams and goats,” said Edith, “but not honour and
conscience. I have heard that it was the dishonour of a Christian maiden
which brought the Saracens into Spain; the shame of another is no likely
mode of expelling them from Palestine.”
“Dost thou call it shame to become an empress?” said the King.
“I call it shame and dishonour to profane a Christian sacrament by
entering into it with an infidel whom it cannot bind; and I call it foul
dishonour that I, the descendant of a Christian princess, should become
of free will the head of a haram of heathen concubines.”
“Well, kinswoman,” said the King, after a pause, “I must not quarrel
with thee, though I think thy dependent condition might have dictated
more compliance.”
“My liege,” replied Edith, “your Grace hath worthily succeeded to all
the wealth, dignity, and dominion of the House of Plantagenet--do
not, therefore, begrudge your poor kinswoman some small share of their
pride.”
“By my faith, wench,” said the King, “thou hast unhorsed me with that
very word, so we will kiss and be friends. I will presently dispatch
thy answer to Saladin. But after all, coz, were it not better to
suspend your answer till you have seen him? Men say he is pre-eminently
handsome.”
“There is no chance of our meeting, my lord,” said Edith.
“By Saint George, but there is next to a certainty of it,” said the
King; “for Saladin will doubtless afford us a free field for the
doing of this new battle of the Standard, and will witness it himself.
Berengaria is wild to behold it also; and I dare be sworn not a feather
of you, her companions and attendants, will remain behind--least of all
thou thyself, fair coz. But come, we have reached the pavilion, and must
part; not in unkindness thou, oh--nay, thou must seal it with thy lip as
well as thy hand, sweet Edith--it is my right as a sovereign to kiss my
pretty vassals.”
He embraced her respectfully and affectionately, and returned through
the moonlit camp, humming to himself such snatches of Blondel's lay as
he could recollect.
On his arrival he lost no time in making up his dispatches for Saladin,
and delivered them to the Nubian, with a charge to set out by peep of
day on his return to the Soldan.