CHAS-CHATEIL
On the summit of a hill looking over the vale of the Kennet stood the
castle of Chas-Chateil, surrounded by a park well wooded, and stocked
with deer and beasts of game. It had been built in the reign of Stephen
by Henry de Moreville, a great baron who flourished in the twelfth
century and bore an eagle on his shield, after his return from the Holy
Land; and as the Morevilles were favourites with the second Henry, it
escaped destruction during the time when the politic king razed so many
feudal fortresses to the ground. Originally it was an ordinary Norman
castle, consisting of a basecourt, the sides of the walls being
fortified with angles, towers, buttresses, battlements, and hornworks.
But it was now a far prouder and more magnificent edifice--a place
which, if well garrisoned and provisioned, might, before the invention
of cannon, have held out long against a besieging army.
In fact, few men in England had a more thorough perception of the utter
insecurity of national affairs at that time than Hugh de Moreville.
Having long foreseen the crisis, he had not neglected to set his house
in order; and Chas-Chateil had, consequently, been much enlarged and
strengthened, and much improved both as regarded the appearance which it
presented in its exterior and as regarded the comfort which it afforded
to the inmates. At morning, indeed, when seen at sunrise it had quite a
gay and laughing aspect; and in the interior everything was arranged
with a view of rendering feudal life as tolerable and pleasant as
possible. The outer galleries glittered with the armour of the
sentinels, and the towers were all bright with their new gratings, and
the roofs bordered with machicolations, parapets, guard-walks, and
sentry-boxes; and on passing the chapel, dedicated to St. Moden--the
patron saint of the Morevilles--and entering the court, with its
fountain and its cisterns, you found the kitchens, with their mighty
fireplaces on one side, and stables and hen-houses and pigeons on the
other side, and in the middle, strongly defended, the donjon, where were
kept the archives and the treasure of the house. Below were the cellars,
the vaults, and, what were sometimes as well filled as either, the
prisons, in which unhappy captives pined and groaned; and above, and
only to be reached by one spacious stone stair, the apartments occupied
by the family and dependants of the lord of the castle--the great hall,
the lady’s bower, the guest-room, the bed-chambers, and the numerous
cribs necessary for the accommodation of the multitudinous domestics,
who, arrayed in the picturesque costume and speaking the quaint language
of the period, and wearing the Moreville eagle, under the names of
demoiselles, waiting-women, squires, pages, grooms, yeomen, henchmen,
minstrels, and jesters, formed the household of a feudal magnate.
But when Oliver Icingla entered the castle of his maternal ancestors,
the hour was so late that everything was quiet, most of the household
having betaken themselves to repose. Nor, in truth, had he any
opportunity of making observations. With very little ceremony he was
told to dismount from his horse; and having, not without a sigh, parted
from Ayoub, he was conducted, manacled as he was, up the great stone
stair, and into the interior of the castle, and that with such haste
that he had scarcely time to take breath, far less to collect his
thoughts, till, after passing through several galleries, he found
himself in a somewhat dimly lighted room. There, covered with a mantle
of minever, Hugh de Moreville was stretched on a couch, his favourite
hound by his side.
The Norman baron was occupied with his last meal for the day--that cold
collation, generally taken at nine o’clock, and known as “liverie.” But
it was evident he was merely going through a form, and that he could not
taste the viands. In fact, De Moreville was suffering severely from
gout--the result of indulgence in good cheer during his brief stay in
the capital--and his temper, never celestial, was so severely tried by
pain and twitches, that, at times, he was inclined to mutter
imprecations the reverse of complimentary on king, barons, citizens, the
laws of Edward the Confessor, even the Great Charter itself.
“What ho, young kinsman!” said he, recovering himself after a moment,
and speaking in a bantering tone; “I hardly deemed myself such a
favourite of Fortune as that she should send you under the roof of
Chas-Chateil; but I rejoice to see you. Our last meeting was unlucky in
this, that we parted without your fully understanding me. By St. Moden,
you shall now comprehend my meaning!”
“My lord,” replied Oliver, speaking calmly, though his blood boiled with
indignation at the tone in which he was addressed, “I thank you for
welcoming me to the castle which is the inheritance of my mother; albeit
I cannot help confessing that it would have been more pleasing to come
under different circumstances. However, of that anon. Meantime,
vouchsafe to inform me for what reason I have been hunted like a robber
by your men-at-arms, and dragged here forcibly against my will. I demand
to know.”
De Moreville laughed mockingly, and raised his eyes to the roof of the
chamber, whereupon were carved some grotesque figures, each of which
might be intended to represent that important bird the Moreville eagle.
“On my faith!” answered he at length, “I marvel much that any youth with
the Moreville blood in his veins can be such a dullard as to ask such a
question. But an answer you shall have. You were seized and brought
hither because you were engaged in attempts at variance with the laws of
the land and the authority of the barons, the conservators of the
charter signed at Runnymede.”
“Answer me two questions,” said Oliver, sternly. “Am I a prisoner? and
if so, is my life aimed at?”
“Everything depends on yourself. Meanwhile, you have letters from Queen
Isabel to King John. Hand them to me.”
“You do me great injustice,” said Oliver, “in supposing it possible
that, if intrusted with letters, I should render them to any but the
person for whose hand they were intended.”
“Is that your answer?” fiercely demanded De Moreville.
“It is my answer,” retorted Oliver, with equal heat; “and it is an
answer more courteous than you deserve.”
“By the bones of St. Moden!” exclaimed De Moreville, with a frowning
brow, “I can no longer brook such obstinacy! May I become an Englishman
if I bend or break not your proud spirit ere the year is much nearer
midsummer!” and he blew a silver whistle that lay at his side, the sound
of which instantly brought Ralph Hornmouth and another man-at-arms into
the chamber.
“Ho, there! Ralph Hornmouth,” said De Moreville, fiercely, “give me the
letters which this varlet has about him. Methinks, from the direction
his eye took when I mentioned them, he has them in his boots.”
Hornmouth and his comrade obeyed; and Oliver, notwithstanding a brave
struggle, had the bitter mortification, while prostrated on his back and
held down, of seeing the queen’s letter taken from his boot and handed
to the Norman baron; but no second letter could be found, for the very
excellent reason that no such letter had ever been in existence.
Meanwhile, De Moreville perused the epistle slowly, and as he read, his
countenance evinced disappointment. It seemed, indeed, that the letter
did not contain the kind of information he expected; and he turned to
Oliver, who was again on his feet, almost weeping from rage, and
regarding his kinsman with angry glances.
“You will now inform me,” said he, like a man determined on having an
answer by fair or foul means, “whither William de Collingham has gone,
and with what intent.”
“Dog of a Norman!” exclaimed Oliver, giving way to his fury, “I would
not answer such a question to save my body from the bernicles. Villain
and oppressor, do your worst; I defy you and your myrmidons.”
“I can waste no more time in bandying words,” said De Moreville,
significantly. “Conduct this varlet to the blind chamber of the
prison-house,” continued he, addressing Hornmouth, “and give him a taste
of the brake. The blind chamber has, in its day, brought still worse
madmen than he is to their senses, and the brake has proved too much for
the endurance of hardier limbs.”
Oliver Icingla shuddered. He rapidly recalled to memory the stories he
had often heard from men of English race of the atrocious cruelties
perpetrated by Norman barons in earlier reigns on their unfortunate
prisoners; how one victim was starved to death; how a second was flung
into a cellar full of reptiles; how a third was hung up by the thumbs;
how a fourth was crippled in a frame which was so constructed that he
could not move an inch in any direction; and how a fifth was suspended
from a sharp collar round his neck, with his toes just resting on the
ground. It was natural enough that Oliver should shudder as the
recollection of such things flashed through his brain; and as they did
so his blood ran cold, and his heart beat fast and loud. But he was game
to the backbone; and De Moreville, who watched him narrowly, could not
but marvel that there was not, even for a moment, any appearance of the
slightest inclination to show the white feather.
“I am in your power,” said he, in a firm voice, as he threw back his
head proudly. “You can do with me as you please; but bear in mind that
whatever you do will be at your peril.”
“Away with him!” cried De Moreville, with an impatient gesture; and
Oliver was led from the chamber.