Entering the tavern of "The Crane," I found the doorways crowded with
archers of our Guard, among whom was Randal Rutherford.
When I had come, they walked into a chamber on the ground floor, calling
for wine, and bidding certain French burgesses go forth, who needed no
second telling. The door was shut, two sentinels of ours were posted
outside, and then Randal very carefully sounded all the panels of the
room, looking heedfully lest there should be any hole whereby what passed
among us might be heard in another part of the house, but he found
nothing of the kind.
The room being full, some sitting and some standing, as we could, Randal
bade Father Urquhart, our chaplain, tell us to what end we had been
called together.
The good father thereupon stood up, and spoke in a low voice, but so that
all could hear, for we were all hushed to listen.
"There is," he said, "within Paris, a certain Carmelite, a Frenchman, and
a friend of Brother Richard, the Preacher, whom, as you know, the English
drove from the town."
"I saw him at Troyes," said one, "where he kneeled before the Maid, and
they seemed very loving."
"That is the man, that is Brother Richard. Now, as I was busy tending
the wounded, in the skirmish three days agone, this Carmelite was about
the same duty for those of his party. He put into my hand a slip of
paper, wherein Brother Richard commended him to any Scot or Frenchman of
the King's party, as an honest man, and a friend of the King's. When I
had read this, the Carmelite spoke with me in Latin, and in a low voice.
His matter was this: In Paris, he said, there is a strong party of
Armagnacs, who have, as we all know, a long score to settle with them of
Burgundy. They are of the common folk and labourers, but among them are
many rich burgesses. They have banded themselves together by an oath to
take our part, within the town, if once we win a gate. Here is a cedule
signed by them with their names or marks, and this he gave me as a proof
of good faith."
Here he handed a long slip of parchment, all covered with writing, to
Randal, and it went round among us, but few there were clerks, save
myself. I looked on it, and the names, many of them attested by seals
with coat armour, were plain to be read.
"Their counsel is to muster in arms secretly, and to convey themselves,
one by one, into certain houses hard by the Port St. Denis, where certain
of their party dwell. Now, very early to-morrow morning, before dawn,
the purpose of the English is to send forth a company of a hundred men-at-
arms, who will make a sudden onset on the windmill, where the Maid lies
to-night, and so will take her, if they may."
"By St. Bride of Douglas," said one of us, "they will get their kail
through the reek, for our guard is to lie in arms about the windmill, and
be first in the field to-morrow."
"The craft is, then," Father Urquhart went on, "that we shall destroy
this English company with sword or arrow, but with no alarm of culverins
or cannon. Meanwhile, some five score of you will put on to-night the
red cross of St. George, with plain armour, so that the English shall
mistake you for their own men returning from the sally, and some few men
in our own colours and coats you will hale with you as prisoners. And,
if one of you can but attire himself in some gear of the Maid's, with a
hucque of hers, scarlet, and dight with the Lilies of France, the English
gate-wards will open to you all the more eagerly."
"By the bones of St. Boswell!" cried Randal in his loud voice, but the
good Father put a hand on his mouth.
"Quiet, man!" he said.
"By the blessed bones of St. Boswell," Randal said again, as near a
whisper as he could attain to, "the lady of the linen-basket shall come
as the Maid. We have no man so maidenly."
They all shouted, laughing, and beating the tables with hands and
tankards.
"Silence!" cried Robin Lindsay.
"Nay, the louder we laugh, the less will any suspect what is forward,"
said Randal Rutherford.
"Norman, will you play this part in the mumming?"
I was ashamed to say no, though I liked it not over well, and I nodded
with my head.
"How maidenly he blushes!" cried one, and there was another clamour, till
the walls rang.
"So be it then," says Father Urquhart, "and now you know all. The honest
Armagnacs will rise so soon as you are well within the gate. They
command both sides of the street that leads to the Port St. Denis, and
faith, if the English want to take it, when a hundred Scots are within,
they will have to sally forth by another gate, and come from the outside.
And you are to run up the banner of Scotland over the Port, when once you
hold it, so the French attack will be thereby."
"We played the same game before Verneuil fight, and won it," said one;
"will the English have forgotten the trick?"
"By St. Bride, when once they see us haling the Maid along, they will
forget old stratagems of war. This is a new device! Oh to see their
faces when we cry 'St. Andrew,' and set on!"
"I am not so old as you all in the wars," I began.
"No, Mademoiselle la Lavandiere, but you are of the right spirit, with
your wench's face."
"But," I said, "how if the English that are to attack the windmill in the
first grey of the morning come not to hand-strokes, or take to their
heels when they find us awake, and win back to Paris before us? Our
craft, methinks, is to hold them in an ambush, but what if we catch them
not? Let but one runaway be swift of foot, and we are undone."
"There is this to be said," quoth Father Urquhart, "that the English
company is to sally forth by the Port St. Denis, and it is the Port St.
Denis that our Armagnacs will be guarding. Now I speak as a man of
peace, for that is my calling. But how would it be if your hundred men
and Norman set forth in the dark, and lay hid not very far from the St.
Denis Gate? Then some while after the lighting of the bale-fires from
the windmill, to be lit when the English set on, make straight for the
gate, and cry, 'St. George for England!' If you see not the bale-fires
ere daylight, you will come back with what speed you may; but if you do
see them, then--"
"Father, you have not lived long on the Highland line for nothing," quoth
Robin Lindsay.
"A very proper stratagem indeed," I said, "but now, gentlemen, there is
one little matter; how will Sir Hugh Kennedy take this device of ours? If
we try it and fail, without his privity, we had better never return, but
die under Paris wall. And, even if we hold the gate, and Paris town is
taken, faith I would rather affront the fire of John the Lorrainer than
the face of Sir Hugh."
No man spoke, there were not two minds on this matter, so, after some
chaffer of words, it was agreed to send Father Urquhart with Randal to
show the whole scheme to Sir Hugh, while the rest of us should await
their coming back with an answer. In no long time they were with us, the
father very red and shamefaced.
"He gave the good father the rough side of his tongue," quoth Randal,
"for speaking first to me, and not to him. Happily we were over cunning
to say aught of our gathering here. But when he had let his bile flow,
he swore, and said that he could spare a hundred dyvour loons of his
command, on the cast of the dice, and, now silence all! not a word or a
cry," here he held up his hand, "we are to take 'fortune of war'!"
Every man grinned gladly on his neighbour, in dead stillness.
"Now," said Randal, "slip out by threes and fours, quietly, and to
quarters; but you, Norman, wait with me."